UC-NRLF 


~L 


A    NEW    DAY 


u  j  J  y,  -j 


Lucid    Intervals 

by 

Edward  Sandford  Martin 

• 

Author  of 

"A    Little    Brother    of    the    Rich" 
"Windfalls  of  Observation" 


Illustrated 


Harper  <£r   Brothers 

New  York  and  London 
1900 


Copyright,  1900,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  CHILDREN 3 

II.  SWAINS  AND  DAMSELS 27 

III.  HUSBANDS  AND  WIVES 55 

IV.  EDUCATION 79 

V.  RICHES 107 

VI.  SOME  HUMAN  CRAVINGS 137 

VI I.  ENERGY  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES 169 

VIII.  A  CONSIDERATION  OF  SOME  THEOLOGIES    .     .  185 

IX.  TIMES  AND  SEASONS 203 

X.  SOME  NEW  YORK  TYPES 245 


M177178 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

A   NEW   DAY Frontispiece 

CHILDREN  (vignette  fages) 4-22 

BREAKFAST Facing  Page        6 

NOONTIME S 

IN    SCHOOL 12 

SHADOW  TIME l6 

THE  EVENING  HOUR 2O 

TOO  FLAGRANTLY  RESIGNED 2Q 

HER  CREDIT  IS  GOOD 4° 

SERVANTS  AND  THE  ORDINARY  LUXURIES  OF  LIFE.    .  42 

LONG  ENGAGEMENTS 4^ 

BEWARE  OF  MEN  OF  EXCEPTIONAL  TALENT   ....  66 

"AUNT  JANE" 74 

GETTING  ON  IN  COLLEGE 98 

WHERE  MR.  VANDERBILT  LIVES IO8 

FESSENDEN I27 

"AUTHORITY" I38 

"MODESTY" r45 

"THE   RELIEF    OF   THE   MIND" I51 

"SPECULATION" I58 

"WE  DON'T  ENVY  VAN  TORT" 162 

V 


Illustrations 


PAGE 

WAR  AS  A  SPORT 172 

DEVELOPMENT  BY  INCUBATION 178 

"LENT" 204 

"  MOVING  DAY  " 215 

"THE  DOG  DAYS" 221 

"AUGUST  IS  A  DANGEROUS  TIME" 223 

"ONLY  THE  YOUNG  HAVE  FUN" 236 

MESSENGER  BOY 248 

THE  COLLEGE  BOY 253 

HERR  PRETZEL 255 

THE  SHOP-GIRL     . 260 


CHILDREN 


CHILDREN 

IT  is  not  the  custom  in  our  family  to 
return  thanks  after  food,  but  seven-year-old 
Blandina,  who  is  very  deliberate  about  tak 
ing  her  simple  nourishment,  is  apt,  when 
she  has  finished  what  has  been  set  before  her 
and  taken  off  her  bib,  to  get  down  from  her 
chair  and  kiss  both  her  parents.  Such  a 
demonstration  has  never  been  expected, 
much  less  exacted,  from  Blandina.  It  is 
an  impulse  from  within — the  outward  sign 
of  replenished  energies,  and  of  a  prompt  and 
instinctive  appreciation  of  the  blessings  of 
this  life. 

Those  blessings  Blandina  has  always  ap 
preciated.  She  has  always  been  glad  to  be 
alive.  She  wakes  in  the  morning  benignly 
disposed  towards  all  creation.  She  is  glad 
3 


Lucid  Intervals 


when  it  is  breakfast -time,  glad  to  go  to 
school,  glad  to  come  home,  glad  to  get  her 
luncheon,  glad,  after  lunch,  to  go  to  the 
park,  or  to  shop,  or  to  read  or  play  at  home, 
or  to  do  anything  that  comes  handy.  And 
when  the  gas  is  lighted,  and  the  hour  for 
bread-and-milk  and  dropped  eggs  comes 


around,  she  greets  those  restoratives  with 
enthusiasm.  It  cannot  truthfully  be  said 
of  her  that  she  is  glad  to  go  to  bed.  Usually 
she  goes  with  reluctance  and  sometimes 
with  tears  ;  but  once  abed,  her  pleasant  im 
pressions  of  existence  reassert  themselves, 
her  philosophy  returns,  and  the  current  of 
her  affections  resumes  its  course.  Some 
how  Blandina's  affections  seem  to  be  always 
in  commission.  She  is  a  person  of  con- 
4 


Children 


siderable  wilfulness,  not  without  temper, 
not  at  all  indifferent  to  getting  her  full  share 
of  any  good  thing  that  may  be  in  course  of 
distribution.  Her  tears  flow  readily  and  of 


ten,  but  dry  incredibly  soon.  There  never 
was  a  child  more  appreciative  of  the  pleas 
ures  of  consolation.  I  suppose  that  if  she 
were  analyzed  by  a  competent  hand,  the 
report  would 
note  traces  of 
jealousy  and 
selfishness. 
Nevertheless 
she  has  the 
great  charms 
of  repose  and 
g  o  o  d  -  w  i  1 1 . 

5 


Lucid  Intervals 


The  repose  comes  from  the  capacity  to  be 
satisfied  with  favorable  conditions  for  a  con 
siderable  period  at  a  time.  When  she  has 
been  duly  wound  up,  she  goes  steadily  until 
she  runs  down.  The  good-will  is  an  accident 
of  birth.  Blandina  was  born  comfortable  in 
mind  and  body,  and  affectionately  disposed 
towards  mankind  and  all  nature.  She  looks 


always  with  interest  into  the  world's  mirror 
and  sees  pleasant  things  there.  That  is  the 
gold  spoon  in  her  baby  mouth.  That  is 
what  makes  her  blunt  nose,  with  all  its 
freckles,  seem  an  advantageous  feature. 
That  is  what  makes  her  more  valuable  as  a 
mundane  possession  than  a  pretty  big  bunch 
of  bonds  with  gilt  on  their  edges  and  coupons 
attached.  The  coupons  come  off  the  bonds 
only  twice  a  year,  but  the  interest  on  Blan- 
6 


BREAKFAST 


Children 


dina  accrues  by  the  hour,  and  the  payments 
are  generous  and  constant. 

The  disgruntled  person 
who  thought  that  life  might 
be  tolerable  if  it  were  not 
for  its  pleasures  was  un 
able,  probably,  to  com 
mand  the  simple  and  prof 
itable  form  of  satisfaction 
which  comes  from  living 
in  the  house  with  a  nice  child.  To  be  sure, 
one  nice  child  is  a  scant  allowance.  At  least 
six  is  preferable,  if  one  can  find  keep  and 
education  for  so  many.  Jason  Jackson,  of 
Boston,  who  loves  all  sports,  and  searches 
life's  pockets  for  pleasures,  appreciates  chil 
dren  with  a  man's  irresponsible  joy,  and 
loves  to  have  them  about  in  all  stages  of 
growth.  It  was  he  who  admitted,  with  a 
new  baby  in  his  lap,  that  he  liked  to  have 
always  one  nice  soft  one  in 
the  house.  All  properly  con 
stituted  parents  share 
that  liking,  though  it 
is  a  very  exceptional 
family  nowadays  that 
-  7 


Lucid  Intervals 


lives  persistently  up  to  its  preferences  in 
this  particular.  It  is  the  disposition  of 
all  the  world  in  these  days  to  run  to  town ; 
and  town  life,  full  of  distractions  and  elab 
orations,  and  calculations  and  costs,  un 
doubtedly  favors  small  families.  The  pos 
session  of  great  treasures  inevitably  in 


volves  cares,  and  mothers  remember,  even  if 
fathers  forget,  that  children  don't  grow  up 
as  they  should  without  thought  being  taken 
for  them.  One  child  is  a  more  anxious 
charge  than  two  or  three,  but  more  children 
than  two  or  three  means  more  care,  and  it  is 
possible  that  of  care  there  may  be  an  over- 
supply.  Then,  too,  the  distribution  of  living 
space  in  cities  is  not  at  all  sensible.  The 
rule  ought  to  be  that  the  largest  families 
8 


NOON-TIME 


Children 


should  have  the  largest  houses.  The  rule 
is,  with  due  exceptions  to  prove  it,  that  the 
size  of  one's  domicile  is  in  inverse  propor 
tion  to  the  size  of  one's  family.  That  is  be 
cause  the  more  of  the  family  income  goes 
for  food,  clothes,  and  schooling,  the  less  re 
mains  for  rent.  The  world  is  full  of  just 
such  rules,  invented  for  the  confusion  of 
parents.  Nevertheless,  hough  there  are 
folks  to  whom  children  are  a  trial,  and  to 
whom  a  certain  scale  of  living,  and  straw 
berries  in  March,  and  the  opera,  and  timely 
journeys,  and  various  privileges  of  an  un 
encumbered  life,  are  worth  more  than  young 
faces  at  the  breakfast-table  and  kisses  at 
bedtime,  the  general  conclusion  of  mankind 
is  that  nice  children  are  God's  best  gift. 

Some  persons  of  a  superior  virtue  live 
childless  in  the  married  state  and  love  each 
other,  and  keep  the  peace,  and  find  interests 
in  life  that  afford  them  due  entertainment; 
but  the  success  which  they  make  in  living — 
when  they  do  make  it — is  the  triumph  of 
character  over  circumstances,  and  it  takes 
superior  virtue  to  compass  it.  We  should 
always  admire  and  respect  such  persons  as 
9 


Lucid  Intervals 


beings  superior  to  their  fate,  and  conversely 
we  would  seem  entitled  to  think  rather  small 
potatoes  of  married  people  who,  with  children 
to  help  them,  don't  manage  to  live  harmoni 
ous.  In  the  case  of  such  a  couple  it  is  pretty 
safe  to  conclude  that  about  one  or  the  other 
of  them  there  is  something  very  much  amiss, 
since  with  the  greatest  luxury  in  life  vouch 
safed  to  them  they  cannot  profit  by  it. 

To  have  a  family  and  no  means  of  support 
is  a  serious  predicament,  and  it  is  not  bet 
tered  by  the  fact  that  the  family  is  large.  A 
family  with  a  bad  physical  or  mental  in 
heritance,  or  in  the  hands  of  incompetent 
parents,  is  not  likely  to  be  a  blessing  or  a 
valuable  asset  in  the  world.  But  a  family 
of  well-born  children,  committed  to  parents 
who  appreciate 
their  charge 
and  are  equal 
to  it,  is  one  of 
the  very  best 
things  going. 
The  very  best 
and  most  im 
portant  thing 

10 


Children 


in  the  world  is  folks.  Without  them  the 
world  would  be  a  mere  point  in  space,  and  of 
no  account  except  as  a  balance-weight.  All 
that  ails  the  world  as  it  is  is  a  shortage  of 
folks  of  the  right  quality  Of  everything 
else  there  is  enough  to  go  around.  Conse 
quently  the  most  valuable  gift  that  can  come 
to  earth  through  man  is  rightly  constituted 
children.  Beside  them  all  other  forms  of 
wealth  are  defective.  Money  is  an  excellent 
thing  in  so  far  as  it  enables  one  to  command 
health  and  power  and  education  and  oppor 
tunity,  and  promotes  one's  usefulness,  but 
children  are  a  power  and  an  unceasing 
entertainment,  and  constitute  usefulness 
immediate  and  prospective.  While  money 
tempts  to  idleness,  children  are  an  incentive 
to  industry;  where  money  makes  for  self- 


Lucid  Intervals 


indulgence,  children  make  for  self-denial; 
where  money  is  an  aid  to  vagrancy,  chil 
dren  necessitate  a  home  and  some  adherence 
to  it.  Money  in  superfluous  quantities  is  a 
recognized  demoralizer,  but  every  good  child 
is  a  moralizer  to  its  parents.  Can  there  be 
any  question,  then,  that  to  accumulate  a 
reasonable  number  of  children  is  better 
worth  one's  while  than  to  accumulate  an  un 
reasonable  amount  of  money  ?  Not  a  bit ; 
and  yet  the  world  is  full  of  ignorants  whose 
ideal  of  the  condition  of  happiness  is  to  have 
a  very  large  fortune  and  a  very  small  family. 
To  such  persons  to  raise  more  than  two  chil 
dren  seems  a  flight  in  the  face  of  Providence, 
and  a  reckless  preference  for  the  poor-house 


as  the  refuge  of  one's  declining  days.    Great 
is  prudence ;  but  it  is  worth  remembering 


12 


IN    SCHOOL. 


Children 


that  there  are  chances  of  rais 
ing  too  few  children  as  well  as  too  many, 
and  while  it  is  an  embarrassment  to  have  a 
young  family  on  one's  hands  and  run  out 
of  funds,  it  is  also  an  embarrassment  to 
find  one's  self  past  middle-life  and  fairly  in 
funds  but  short  of  children.  The  man  who 
has  exercised  such  discretion  as  to  reach  the 
age  of  fifty  without  having  any  children  to 
fall  back  on,  has  probably,  if  he  has  any 
sense,  passed  the  period  when  he  admires 


Lucid  Intervals 


his  own  prudence,  and  has  come  to  think  of 
himself  as  one  who  has  wasted  his  oppor 
tunities. 

We  are  amiss  in  that  we  don't  think  of 
children  as  wealth.  Our  minds  are  apt  to 
dwell  unduly  on  the  cost  of  raising  them 
and  starting  them  in  the  world,  and  not 
enough  on  the  profit  of  them.  We  speak  of 
Jenkins  as  "  a  poor  man  with  a  very  large 
family/'  as  though  a  man  with  a  large  family 
could  justly  be  regarded  as  poor,  provided 
the  family  was  of  good  quality.  Jenkins 
has  only  six  or  seven  children,  and  can  feed 
and  clothe  and  love  them  all,  and  sends  them 
to  school,  and  has  fun  with  them — thanks 
to  his  having  a  very  able  wife.  We  also 
speak  of  Disbrow  as  a  rich  man  with  one 
daughter,  as  though  a  man  with  much 


Children 


money  and  only  one  daughter  could  justly 
be  called  rich.  We  are  not  very  accurate 
in  our  use  of  language.  If  a  man  who 
has  valuables  is  rich,  Jenkins  is  very  well 
off,  and  we  should 
recognize  it  in  our 
thoughts  of  him ; 
whereas  a  man  with 
much  mone}^  and 
only  one  daughter 
is  but  one  step  re 
moved  from  want. 

Excessively  rich  people  rarely  raise  large 
families  nowadays,  and  there  are  good  rea 
sons  for  it.  They  haven't  time,  for  one 
thing.  Conscientious  parents,  be  they  rich 
or  poor,  don't  want  to  neglect  their  children, 
or  to  turn  them  over  entirely  to  hired  super 
vision.  You  might  almost  as  well  not  have 
children  as  not  live  with  them  and  be  both 
ered  with  them.  But  six  or  seven  children 
constitute  for  many  years  almost  a  complete 
occupation  for  a  mother,  and  women  who 
can  command  the  various  exercises  that 
money  can  buy  are  loath  to  spend  too  large 
a  share  of  their  lives  in  the  service  of  child- 


Lucid  Intervals 


hood.  You  can't  take  a  troop  of  children 
abroad  in  the  spring,  to  Newport  in  the  sum 
mer,  to  Lenox  in  the  fall,  to  New  York  in  the 
winter,  and  to  Florida  in  February.  They 
have  to  go  to  school,  for  one  thing ;  and,  for 
another,  it  isn't  healthy  for  them  to  keep 
them  on  the  road.  Any  travelling  circus- 
man  will  tell  you  that  it's  hard  to  keep  the 
menagerie  cubs  alive  while  the  show  is  mov 
ing.  There's  no  place  for  children  like  al 
most  any  plain  home  where  the  plumbing  is 
safe,  and  the  water  can  be  boiled,  and  where 
you  think  your  doctor  knows  the  milkman. 
But  if  you  are  going  to  stay  at  home,  there's 
no  special  point  about  being  egregiously 
rich,  so  the  families  of  the  extremely  opulent 


SHADOW    TIME 


Children 


as  a  general  thing  are  small.  Another 
thing  :  where  there  is  a  fortune  of  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  millions  or  more,  it  always 
seems  a  pity  to  split  it  into  more  than  two  or 
three  pieces.  It  is  well  enough  as  endow 
ments  after  the  division,  but  it  is  spoiled  as  a 
curiosity.  When  a  collection  of  money  has 
been  made  so  nearly  complete  that  it  ap 
proaches  the  condition  of  being  a  phenome 
non,  there  is  a  na  ural  reluctance  on  the 
owner's  part  to  cut  it  up  into  mere  incidents. 
Accordingly  the  incalculably  rich  do  not,  as 
a  rule,  care  for  a  large  group  of  heirs.  One 
or  two  answer  as  well  as  a  dozen.  As  far  as 
raising  a  large  family  goes,  a  man  with  only 
two  or  three  millions  is  better  off  than  though 


Lucid  Intervals 


he  were  really  opulent,  for  if  he  has  ten  chil 
dren  he  can  provide  for  them  all,  and  edu 
cate  them,  and  give  them  a  handsome  start 
in  life,  and  still  have  enough  left  to  live  and 
die  on  and  make  his  widow  happy.  The 
idea  of  being  "  worth  "  a  hundred  and  fifty 
millions,  and  raising  as  large  a  family  as 
such  a  fortune  would  warrant,  is  not  a  prac 
tical  idea,  albeit  it  is  a  dream  of  a  grand 
family. 

The  interminable  variety  in  children  has 
its  good  points  and  its 
disadvantages.  If  they 
were  more  alike  they 
would  be  less  interest 
ing,  but  it  would  be 
more  nearly  possible  to 
feel  that  a  family  was 
18 


Children 


sometimes  complete.  But  the  possibilities 
of  heredity  are  inexhaustible.  One  child  in 
herits  this  or  that  from  his  mother  and 
something  else  from  his  father,  and  another 
in  selecting  the  composite  qualities  in  which 
it  is  to  clothe  itself  may  skip  its  parents  al 
together  and  go  back  to  grandparents  or 
forebears  still  more  remote.  This  lends  an 
interminable  ex 
citement  to  the 
rearing  of  fami 
lies.  The  certain 
ty  that  no  new 
comer  will  be  a 
duplicate  of  any 
child  in  being  stirs 
in  the  optimist 

'9 


Lucid  Intervals 


thoughts  of  combinations  of  powers  and  per 
fections  the  development  of  which  it  would 
be  a  life-long  delight  to  watch.  The  records 
of  some  younger  children,  late -comers  in 
large  families,  who  have  been  born  with  great 
endowrments  and  turned  out  to  be  great 
people,  must  always  be  an  aggravation  to 
ambitious  parents  whose  families  are  small. 
To  know  of  whole  series  of  wonders  which 
have  been  accomplished  by  seventh  sons  is 
disconcerting  to  folks  to  whom  a  seventh 
son  is  an  impossible  luxury;  but  they  may 
always  comfort  themselves  by  remember 
ing  that  a  small  family  well  raised  is  more 
likely  to  rejoice  its  parents  than  a  big  one 
neglected. 

But  that  introduces  the  question  of  what 
a  good  bringing-up  consists  in.  As  to  that, 
the  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating. 
We  will  all  agree  that  children  should  learn 
to  read  and  write,  and  speak  the  truth; 
that  it  is  good  for  them  to  love  and  be  loved  ; 
that  they  ought  not  to  be  so  snowed  under 
with  what  are  called  "advantages"  as  to 
stifle  their  natural  development;  that  the 
aim  of  education  is  to  bring  out  the  good 

20 


THE    EVENING    HOUR 


Children 


and  the  strength  there  is  in  the  child,  and 
not  to  shape  it  by  main  strength  according 
to  some  preconceived  idea  of  parent  or 
teacher. 

The  people  who  are  of  most  account  in  the 
world  are  the  people  who  work.  We  cer 
tainly  do  not  want  our  children  to  grow  up 
into  do-nothings.  We  want  them  to  learn 
to  work  as  hard  and  as  successfully  as 
possible.  We  want  them  also  to  be  good, 
and  to  keep  out  of  mischief,  and  to  be  pleas 
ant.  We  want  them,  if  possible,  to  be  so 
trained  as  to  be  able  to  work  advantageously 
at  things  whereof  the  pursuit  is  agreeable 
and  stimulating,  and  which  bring  rich  re 
wards  to  successful  labor. 

We  shall  not  be  content  with  a  develop 
ment  of  mind  or  of  body  which  the  heart 
does  not  share.  If  our  children  are  success 
ful  solely  for  themselves,  and  not  for  us  too, 
and  for  others  as  well,  we  shall  not  feel  en 
tirely  proud  of  their  raising.  We  all  feel, 
though,  that  the  common  lot  is  not  quite 
good  enough  for  our  children.  We  hope 
for  them  that  they  may  not  drudge  intermin 
ably  at  weary  tasks.  We  want  to  command 

21 


Lucid  Intervals 


for  them  the  brighter  aspects  of  life.  We 
cannot  be  sure  of  accomplishing  that,  but 
if  we  are  wise  enough,  and  not  too  selfish 
or  too  lazy  ourselves,  we  can  do  a  good 
deal  towards  it.  Unworthy  people  who  are 
shrewd  and  selfish  and  unscrupulous  get  a 
good  deal  in  this  world  that  is  rated  as  valu 
able,  but,  after  all,  the  use  that  they  are  able 
to  make  of  what  they  get  depends  upon  what 
they  are.  We  want  our  children  to  grow  up 
to  be  such  persons  that  ill  fortune,  if  they 
meet  with  it,  will  bring  out  strength  in  them, 
and  that  good  fortune  will  not  trip  them  up, 
but  make  them  winners.  To  fight  the  battle 
of  life  under  hard  conditions  and  fall  on  the 
field  is  not  inglorious,  but  to  be  turned  loose 


Children 


in  fields  that  are  white  and  gather  no  satis 
fying  harvest,  ah  !  that  is  a  sad  fate.  We 
should  try  by  all  means  to  save  our  children 
from  that.  One  may  miss  most  of  the  com 
forts  of  life  and  still  succeed,  but  to  have 
good  chances  and  waste  them  all  is  failure. 


II 

SWAINS   AND    DAMSELS 


n 

SWAINS    AND    DAMSELS 

ONE  of  the  ominous  signs  of  the  times  in 
New  York  is  the  great  increase  of  costly 
bachelor  apartment  houses.  New  ones  are 
going  up  all  the  time ;  very  handsome  ones 
where  rents  are  high  and  tenants  are  made 
deplorably  comfortable.  It  is  well  enough 
that  bachelors  in  New  York  should  have  due 
shelter  and  wholesome  food,  but  the  idea  of 
providing  for  them  as  though  their  condi 
tion  was  anything  better  than  a  makeshift 
is  very,  very  wrong. 

Bachelors  ought  not  to  be  very  comfort 
able,  and  they  certainly  should  not  be  allowed 
to  pay  more  than  a  limited  sum  for  rent. 
The  sentiment  of  all  well-regulated  persons 
about  them  is  that  it  is  their  duty  to  save 
money  scrupulously  until  they  get  enough 
27 


Lucid    Intervals 


to  marry  on,  and  then  to  marry  at  once.  It 
is  well  enough  to  let  them  belong  to  one  or 
two  clubs,  for,  of  course,  they  must  be  kept 
off  the  street ;  but  as  for  lodgings,  the  ideal 
arrangement  would  be  that  they  should  live 
in  Mills'  hotels,  be  kept  out  of  their  bed 
rooms  daily  from  ten  to  five,  and  obliged  to 
keep  all  their  property  in  trunks  or  a  locker. 

The  hall  bedroom  was  a  good  institution 
in  its  day  and  helped  to  keep  bachelors  un 
easy.  No  doubt  it  is  in  some  measure  still 
operative,  but  it  is  by  no  means  the  power 
for  good  that  it  was.  Nowadays  bachelors 
between  thirty  and  forty  years  old,  earning 
money  enough  to  support  families,  pamper 
themselves  scandalously.  They  live  in 
these  expensive  houses,  have  three  or  four 
rooms  apiece,  come  and  go,  receive  and 
entertain,  all  without  restrictions  or  super 
vision,  and  are  an  aggravation  and  an 
offence  to  the  more  conscientious  element  in 
the  community. 

It  ought  not  to  be  so.     No  house  should 

be  suffered  to  advertise  itself  openly  as  a 

"  bachelor   apartment   house,"   nor   should 

licenses  be  issued  to  rent  suites  of  comfort- 

28 


Swains   and   Damsels 


able  rooms  with  hot  and  cold  water  and 
conveniences  to  bachelors  at  all.  Bachelors 
should  be  disciplined  and  discouraged.  In 
New  York  they  are  too  numerous  and  too 
flagrantly  resigned ;  and,  as  for  their  lairs, 
the  town  is  choked  up  with  them.  The 


TOO   FLAGRANTLY   RESIGNED 

police  will  realize  presently  that  it  is  a  mis 
take  to  let  them  scatter  so,  and  that  the 
wiser  policy  is  to  herd  them  together  in  a 
quarter  by  themselves,  where  they  can  be 
conveniently  supervised,  checked  in  unlaw 
ful  courses,  and  kept  out  of  miscellaneous 
mischief. 

No  doubt  a  share  of  the  responsibility  for 
29 


Lucid   Intervals 


them  belongs  upon  us,  and  especially  on 
parents,  both  theirs  and  those  of  the  partners 
An  American  they  ought  to  take,  for  indeed 
Disability  ft  [s  pathetic  to  see  how  helpless 
we  American  parents  are  about  marry 
ing  off  our  children.  Almost  all  the  other 
semi-civilized  nations  realize  that  marriage 
is  a  game  which  the  looker-on  gets  the  best 
view  of,  and  is  best  qualified  to  manage, 
but  we  leave  it  almost  all  to  the  players, 
and  how  it  turns  out  depends  partly  on 
their  inexperienced  skill,  but  largely  upon 
luck.  It  is  sad  to  think  of  young  people, 
especially  young  girls,  being  worldly-wise 
enough  to  make  suitable  marriages  for 
themselves,  but  our  girls  make  their  matches 
or  go  without,  and  sometimes,  of  course, 
they  vindicate  their  indiscretion  by  making 
very  bad  ones.  They  tell  us  that  in  France 
they  manage  these  things  better,  and  that 
suitable  matches  are  arranged  by  intermedi 
aries  and  often  turn  out  very  well.  My 
fourth-cousin,  Pauline,  who  has  lived  abroad 
a  good  deal,  likes  the  methods  of  Europe  in 
many  particulars.  She  has  a  sweet  candor 
in  discourse,  and  I  have  heard  her  confess 
3° 


Swains   and   Damsels 

that  she  never  passed  a  cluster  of  highly 
decorated,  well-mannered  German  officers 
without  longing  to  pick  one  for  herself. 
There  would  have  been  no  trouble  about  it 
except  for  prejudices  in  her  family  against 
that  particular  method  of  making  American 
girls  happy.  Cousin  Pauline  realizes  that 
she  should  have  been  married  off  by  a  compe 
tent  hand  on  satisfactory  terms,  and  though 
she  is  a  lovely  spinster  and  greatly  glorifies 
her  Maker  and  adorns  society,  in  her  present 
sphere,  she  does  not  hesitate  to  grumble. 
It  was  she  who  told  me  of  the  Frenchwoman, 
personally  known  to  her,  who  lived  frugally 
for  a  good  many  years  with  her  widowed 
mother  and  worked  hard  until  she  had  ac 
cumulated  by  her  own  toil  and  thrift  such  a 
sum  of  money  as  was  regarded  as  a  proper 
dower  for  a  Frenchwoman  of  her  station. 
Then  the  mother  went  to  their  friend,  the 
priest,  and  confided  to  him  that  the  daughter 
was  prepared  to  marry.  The  priest  looked 
about  and  considered,  and  the  mother  and 
daughter  were  presently  requested  to  be  on 
a  certain  day  in  a  certain  picture-gallery. 
There  by  a  pleasing  coincidence  they  met  the 


Lucid    Intervals 


holy  father,  and  with  him  was  a  gentle 
man  whom  he  asked  leave  to  present  to  his 
friends.  The  gentleman  proved  to  be  agree 
able.  He  too  had  laid  by  something,  and  it 
was  not  long  before  there  was  a  marriage. 
We  Americans  cannot  manage  our  family 
matters  like  that.  We  all  know  likely  girls 
who  are  drifting  about  in  an  aimless  sort  of 
way,  and  apparently  making  no  progress 
towards  a  settlement  in  life  or  anything  else, 
and  we  know  men  of  real  merit,  though  per 
haps  somewhat  overripe,  who  ought  to  be 
taken  out  and  married  off  by  main  strength. 
Nothing  can  be  done  about  them.  We  are  so 
possessed  in  this  country  with  the  sentiment 
that  every  citizen  is  entitled  to  do  as  he  likes 
that  it  is  the  rarest  thing  to  find  any  one  who 
has  grit  enough  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
arranging  a  marriage  for  any  one  else  We 
say,  "  Suppose  they  should  not  like  it!"  and 
tremble  at  the  thought.  And  so  the  blind 
go  on  groping  after  the  blind,  and  like  as  not 
they  miss  one  another  and  are  never  ditched. 
We  who  see  what  ought  to  be,  look  on  and 
sigh,  but  we  never  feel  the  remorse  we  ought 
to  feel. 

32 


Swains   and   Damsels 

My  old  friend  James  Hinton  has  one  of  the 
handsomest  and  most  desirable  nieces  now 
in  the  market,  and  takes  a  violent  interest  in 
her  and  her  prospects  in  life.  She  makes 
him  very  anxious.  He  sees  gentlemen  pay 
respects  to  her,  and  has  terrible  apprehen 
sions  about  the  consequences.  So  far  they 
have  all  sheered  off  in  due  time  in  ways 
that  gave  grounds  for  the  suspicion  that, 
in  Penelope  Hamilton's  phrase,  they  have 
been  urged  to  love  some  one  more  worthy  of 
them.  Even  that  doesn't  satisfy  James,  for 
he  is  haunted  by  the  spectre  of  the  matri 
monial  bargain  -  counter,  and  his  high- 
spirited  young  relative's  appearance  among 
the  marked  down.  Mrs.  Philemon  Robin 
son  has  several  very  mature  sons,  who  have 
done  nothing  all  their  lives  except  work  at 
their  trades  and  fritter  away  their  time  with 
flirts.  James  thinks  that  one  of  Mrs.  Robin 
son's  sons  might  answer  for  his  niece,  and 
he  has  been  to  see  Mrs.  Robinson  about  it. 
He  told  me  of  the  interview. 

"  '  Do  you  care  to  marry  off  Joe,  Mrs. 
Robinson,'  said  I. 

"  '  It  is  the  desire  of  my  life,'  she  replied, 
c  33 


Lucid   Intervals 


'  What  are  you  asking  ?' 
'  Rich,    handsome,   and    pious ;    good 
family,  prudent,  and  not  too  old/ 

'  And  what  are  you  giving  with  Joe,  Mrs. 
Robinson  ?' 

*  '  Giving  ?    Why,    there's    Joe.     What 
more  can  any  girl  want?' 

'  Mrs.  Robinson/  said  I,  'Joe  is  a  poor, 
old,  over  -  indulged  creature,  nearly  forty 
years  old,  thirty  pounds  too  fat,  bald,  stupid, 
addicted  to  liquor,  often  ill,  and  is  known  to 
have  been  repeatedly  upset  in  his  affections. 
He  is  not  a  person  to  whom  any  prudent  man 
would  intrust  a  young  relative's  happiness 
unless  the  extenuating  considerations  were 
very  respectable.  Could  Joe  support  a 
family  ?' 

"  '  How  large  a  family  T 

"  '  Six,  at  least,  including   himself.     It's 
not  worth  the  trouble  of  marrying  for  less. ' 

"  '  Six  !  Bless  me  !  Four  children,  and 
in  New  York,  too.  Let's  see  —  house  in 
town,  $2500;  house  in  the  country,  $1000; 
servants'  wages,  $1500;  food,  clothes,  educa 
tion — say  $12,000  a  year  as  the  minimum. 
Now  what  has  the  young  lady  got  ?' 
34 


Swains   and   Damsels 

"  I  told  her  that  the  young  lady  had  youth, 
beauty,  and  inexperience,  and  that  if  she  had 
had  money,  too,  she  would  have  been  mar 
ried  already  to  her  taste,  and  have  saved  me 
all  quests  for  suitable  elderly  bachelors  of 
impaired  hopes. 

"  Then  Mrs.  Robinson  said  I  disparaged 
Joe  unduly ;  that  he  wasn't  impaired,  that 
he  wasn't  too  stout  for  a  man  of  his  age, 
that  he  wasn't  old,  that  if  his  hair  was  thin 
there  would  be  so  much  less  for  a  young 
termagant  wife  to  pull  out,  and  that  he  was  a 
good  man  and  a  delightful  companion,  as  I 
well  knew,  or  I  would  not  be  dickering  for 
him.  As  for  his  income,  she  said,  Joseph  was 
rich  enough  now  to  marry  if  he  chose,  and 
for  her  part  she  wished  he  did  choose.  But 
that  lingering  on  in  the  convenient  single 
state  he  had  got  the  habit  of  associating  with 
the  prodigiously  rich,  and  had  gradually 
formed  ideas  of  domestic  life  which  called  for 
such  expenditures  that  he  had  come  to  think 
of  himself  as  a  poor  man,  able  to  keep  him 
self  in  pocket  money,  but  destined  not  to 
marry,  unless,  under  Providence,  some  rich 
girl  fell  irrepressibly  in  love  with  him.  For 
35 


Lucid   Intervals 


her  part,  she  said,  she  would  have  been  glad 
to  deal  with  me,  at  least  so  far  as  to  meet 
the  girl ;  but  even  if  she  were  delighted  with 
my  offer,  she  could  not  undertake  to  deliver 
Joe. 

"  So  I  told  her  that  if  she  had  no  influence 
with  her  own  son  it  was  idle  for  us  to  go  fur 
ther  in  the  matter.  I  did  not  think  it  neces 
sary  to  tell  her  how  doubtful  I  was  of  my  own 
influence  with  my  niece." 

I  asked  Hinton  if  he  wanted  a  rich  man  for 
his  niece,  and  he  talked  very  sensibly  about 
that.  He  did  not  want  so  rich  a  man,  he 
said,  that  she  must  spend  her  life  being 
grateful  to  him  for  things  that  it  cost  him 
nothing  to  give  and  which  would  do  her  no 
particular  good.  He  thought  that  poor 
girls  might  easily  marry  disadvantageously 
rich,  and  as  between  the  man  whose  income 
was  rather  too  small  and  was  earned,  and 
the  man  whose  income  was  rather  too  large 
and  came  without  labor,  he  preferred  the 
working-man.  He  really  held  enlightened 
theories  about  marriage  and  match-making, 
and  had  a  just  appreciation  of  the  difficulties 
of  domesticating  a  man  who  had  nothing 
36 


Swains   and   Damsels 

to  do  except  to  amuse  himself.  To  supple 
ment  the  amusements  of  such  a  person  Hin- 
ton  considered  rather  an  inglorious  and  un 
satisfying  career  for  a  first-rate  girl,  and  he 
held  that  there  were  other  lines  of  activity 
that  gave  much  better  promise  of  remuner 
ation.  He  believes  in  work  for  men  and  for 
women  as  an  indispensable  condition  of  hap 
piness,  and  though  undoubtedly  it  might  be 
hard  enough  work  for  a  girl  to  keep  a  rich 
young  man  amused,  as  far  as  his  girl  was 
concerned,  that  was  not  a  job  that  he  par 
ticularly  coveted.  It  was  much  less  trouble, 
he  thought,  to  keep  a  working-man  contented 
— it  paid  better.  But  what  availed  all  his 
good  sense  and  experience,  he  said,  when, 
after  all,  he  could  do  nothing,  since,  as  we 
all  know,  the  American  girl  marries  whom 
she  likes  and  when  she  will,  and  parents  and 
wise  relatives  who  plan  for  her  have  their 
pains  for  nothing. 

But  the  disturbing  truth  remains  that  it  is 
not  over-easy  for  her  to  plan  for  herself.  If 
she  is  poor,  it  is  obviously  difficult,  and  even 
rich  girls  find  their  condition  not  without  its 
embarrassments,  for  you  must  have  noticed 
37 


Lucid   Intervals 


how  bent  every  rich  girl  is  on  being  loved  for 
herself  alone.  Are  not  the  woods  full  of 
Of  a  Certain  hdresses  who  cling  to  spinster- 
Unreason-  hood  for  fear  of  being  married 
abieness  in  for  their  money?  Do  we  not 

RichGirls       .  .         •   i     •     , 

olten  see  the  rich  intermarrying 
with  the  rich,  not  so  much  from  an  ambition 
to  join  estates,  as  because  of  a  belief  that 
where  both  have  money  enough  pecuniary 
considerations  must  fade  out  and  personal 
considerations  determine  everything  ?  The 
millionairess  who  contracts  to  marry  the 
millionaire  seems  to  feel  more  confident 
that  she  has  arranged  a  love-match  than  if 
she  had  planned  to  rescue  a  poorer  man  from 
hard  work  and  possible  destitution.  Some 
times  her  confidence  is  justified;  sometimes 
not.  Some  millionaires  are  just  as  greedy 
as  if  they  were  poor,  or  even  more  so,  and 
take  more  interest  in  piling  the  Pelion  of  a 
wife's  estate  on  the  Ossa  of  their  own  pos 
sessions  than  a  poor  suitor  does  in  the  pros 
pect  of  living  rent-free  and  seeing  in  some 
body's  hoard  a  prospective  rampart  between 
his  children  and  want.  Some  poor  men, 
conversely,  have  very  limited  pecuniary 

38 


Swains   and    Damsels 

sense,  and  can't  half  see  a  fortune  for  looking 
at  the  woman  who  stands  in  front  of  it. 
There  are  men  who  will  always  think  first  of 
the  woman,  and  there  are  others  who  will 
always  think  first  of  the  fortune,  and  which 
class  any  man  belongs  in  is  a  question  with 
which  the  state  of  his  own  bank  account  has 
not  very  much  to  do. 

For  a  rich  girl  to  insist  on  being  loved  for 
herself  alone  is  really  a  good  deal  more 
natural  than  it  is  reasonable.  In  most  of 
her  relations  with  society  she  is  in  the  habit 
of  looking  upon  herself  and  her  fortune  as  a 
single  parcel.  Her  income  represents  cer 
tain  powers,  and  she  is  thoroughly  used  to 
having  those  powers  recognized,  and  to  prof 
iting  in  all  things  by  the  usufruct  of  them. 
They  bring  her  privileges  and  easements, 
deference  from  tradesmen,  consideration 
and  attention  from  nine-tenths  of  the  people 
with  whom  she  comes  in  contact,  and  polite 
ness  from  the  other  tenth.  When  she  goes 
shopping,  when  she  travels,  when  her  church 
calls  a  new  parson,  when  she  meets  the 
other  managers  of  the  society  for  putting 
things  to  rights,  she  is  content  to  have  it  re- 
39 


Lucid    Intervals 


membered  that,  under  Providence,  her  credit 
is  good  and  her  powers  of  disbursement  more 
than  respectable.  But  comes  there  a  suitor, 

straightway  her 
mind  takes  a  new 
attitude.  She  be 
comes  two  parcels 
at  once,  one  being 
her  personality,  the 
other  her  fortune; 
and  if  the  suitor  is 
acceptable  enough 
to  get  serious  con 
sideration  at  all, 
her  first  query  to 
herself  is  pretty 
sure  to  be  :  "  Is  it 
me  or  my  money 
that  the  man 
wants  ?" 

It  seems  as  if  possibly  it  might  relieve  the 
minds  of  some  rich  young  women,  and  better 
their  chance  of  gaining  their  share  of  human 
happiness,  if  they  could  be  brought  to  a 
sounder  understanding  of  their  true  attrac 
tions  as  wares  in  the  great  market  of  matri- 
40 


HER   CREDIT  IS   GOOD 


Swains    and    Damsels 

mony.  In  the  first  place,  the  mere  fact  that 
they  have  money  is  not  necessarily  in  itself 
an  obstacle  to  a  man's  falling  in  love  with 
them,  providing  he  is  of  a  suitable  age  and 
has  reasonable  opportunity.  Every  one 
knows  that  there  is  a  time  of  life  when  a 
young  fellow  is  bound  to  fall  in  love  with 
some  girl.  The  fact  that  the  girl  is  rich 
won't  hinder  him  if  she  is  attractive  in  other 
respects.  There  is  no  available  toxin  that 
makes  impressionable  lads  immune  to  the 
charms  of  rich  girls.  So  far  as  their  per 
sonality  goes,  rich  girls  are  just  as  likely  as 
poor  ones  to  have  true  lovers,  though  it  is 
true  that  there  is  some  exclusiveness  about 
riches,  and  their  fortunes  may  tend  to  isolate 
them.  But  what  the  rich  girls  do  not  always 
consider  is  that  they  have  sundry  drawbacks 
as  partners  for  working-men  which  are  offset 
by  their  money.  The  rich  girl  has  usually 
become  accustomed  to  a  high  standard  of 
living.  Good  clothes,  a  good  home,  ser 
vants,  and  the  ordinary  luxuries  of  life  have 
become  so  nearly  indispensable  to  her  that 
she  would  not  be  happy  without  them,  and 
unless  she  had  the  means  of  providing  these 
41 


Lucid   Intervals 


things  for  herself,  she  would  not  be  available 
as  a  wife  to  any  man  who  could  not  provide 
them  for  her.  No  poor  young  man  who 
has  true  discretion  would  venture  at  the  out 
set  of  what  may  be  a  career  to  fall  seriously 
in  love  with  a  girl  who  has  all  the  needs 
that  are  taught  of  wealth,  unless  she  also 


SERVANTS    AND    THE    ORDINARY    LUXURIES    OF   LIFE 

has  the  means  of  relieving  them.  The  rich 
girl  does  not  want  to  be  poor.  She  wants  to 
keep  on  being  rich.  No  sensible  man  would 
wish  to  lure  a  rich  girl  out  of  her  natural 
environment  into  a  state  of  impecunious- 
ness  and  deprivation.  If  he  intends  to 
marry  and  be  poor,  the  only  reasonable 
course  for  him  is  to  marry  a  girl  who  is  used 
42 


Swains   and   Damsels 

to  being  poor,  and  knows  how,  and  doesn't 
greatly  mind  it.  That  is  what  the  average 
American  does,  and  there  is  no  hardship 
about  it ;  but,  provided  the  man  and  the 
woman  are  the  right  sort  of  persons,  it  is  an 
excellent  thing  to  do.  But  to  invite  a  rich 
girl  to  an  experience  of  poverty  to  which  she 
is  not  used,  and  which  she  would  be  certain 
not  to  like,  would  be  so  unwise  that  a  fairly 
prudent  man  might  well  hesitate  to  risk  it, 
and  hesitate  the  more  the  older  he  was  and 
the  more  he  had  learned  about  the  ordinary 
conditions  of  human  happiness.  And  so  it 
happens  that  rich  girls  and  their  fortunes  are 
almost  always  considered  by  sane  suitors  as 
one  parcel,  and  are  likely  to  be  so  considered 
as  long  as  the  conditions  of  earthly  happi 
ness  continue  as  they  are  at  present. 

But  after  all  there  is  no  occasion  in  that  for 
rich  girls  to  repine.  Many  poor  men  would 
like  a  wife  with  a  fortune,  because  a  fortune 
is  undeniably  a  handy  thing  to  have  in  one's 
family,  but  the  men  who  look  to  marriage 
as  a  means  of  support  are  comparatively  few, 
and  usually  their  attitude  towards  life  is  so 
obvious  that  no  fairly  sensible  rich  girl  need 
43 


Lucid    intervals 


be  taken  in  by  them.  No  man  who  is  not  a 
fool  or  a  rascal  will  wish  to  marry  a  woman, 
be  she  rich  or  poor,  with  whom  he  does  not 
believe  he  can  live  happily.  But  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  marriage  in  which  one  part 
ner  is  happy  and  the  other  not.  Either  it  is  a 
good  marriage  for  both  or  for  neither.  Mar 
riage  is  as  much,  or  very  nearly  as  much, 
a  failure  to  a  man  who  is  not  happy  with  a 
rich  wife,  as  to  one  who  is  not  happy  where 
both  are  poor.  What  the  rich  girl  wants  is 
just  what  the  poor  girl  wrants — a  good  man 
who  suits  her,  and  who  is  worth  marrying. 
If  she  can  satisfy  herself  that  her  suitor  is  a 
good  man,  and  that  he  has  sense  enough  to 
provide  for  his  own  happiness,  she  need  not 
distress  her  mind  with  speculations  as  to  how 
much  weight  her  fortune  has  in  promoting 
his  attentions.  The  man  who  wants  to 
marry  her  merely  because  she  is  rich  is  a 
fool,  and  if  she  has  a  fair  degree  of  discern 
ment  she  will  detect  his  folly.  But  the  man 
who  wants  to  marry  her,  and  is  glad  she  has 
a  fortune  because  it  makes  marriage  more 
feasible  for  both  of  them,  is  by  no  means  a 
fool,  but  if  she  loves  him  he  may  be  an  ad- 
44 


Swains   and    Damsels 

vantageous  person  for  her  to  marry.  The 
practical  turn  of  mind  which  makes  a  man 
appreciate  the  advantages  of  accumulated 
money  does  not  necessarily  render  him  in 
any  respect  incapable  of  appreciating  a 
woman,  or  of  repaying  her  confidence  in  him 
with  entire  devotion  and  fidelity.  Her  fort 
une,  far  from  being  a  drawback  to  her  hap 
piness  after  marriage,  will  still  be  hers,  and 
will  still  be  quite  as  useful  to  her  as  it  was  be 
fore.  The  possession  of  it  will  help  to  make 
her  an  equal  partner  in  the  household,  and, 
indeed,  will  tend,  especially  if  it  is  too  big, 
to  make  her  the  ruling  partner,  so  that  she 
will  have  need  to  exercise  some  discretion  to 
avoid  having  too  much  her  own  way.  That 
may  be  bad  for  her,  but  it  is  one  of  the  risks 
rich  girls  must  run.  It  is  offset  by  the  risk 
the  man  runs  in  having  his  future  too  much 
dominated  by  his  wife's  money ;  but  if  the 
man  is  the  right  sort  of  a  man  and  the 
woman  the  right  sort  of  woman,  both  risks 
may  be  safely  taken.  In  the  end,  it  is  char 
acter  and  disposition  that  count,  and  the 
money,  be  there  much  or  little,  and  whoever 
has  it,  becomes  an  incident  and  no  more. 
45 


Lucid   Intervals 


One  thing  a  rich  girl  may  hope  to  avoid, 
and  that  is  a  protracted  engagement.  It 

Of  Long  is  worth  avoiding.  They  say 
Engagements  there  is  no  marrying  in  heaven, 
so  if  we  can  imagine  that  an  engagement 
might  occur  there,  we  are  at  liberty  to  in 
vent  for  it  an  indefinite  continuance. 
There  is  an  exclusiveness  about  an  en 
gagement  which  somehow  does  not  con 
sort  with  the  prevalent  notion  of  the  ad- 


LONG   ENGAGEMENTS 


vantages  of  that  place,  but  if  it  could  exist 
there  at  all  it  might  run  on  forever,  and  be 
a  pleasure  all  the  time.  It  is  not  altogether 
so  here  on  the  earth,  where  clearly  enough 
public  sentiment  is  against  permanency  in 
engagements,  and  only  tolerates  them  as  a 
temporary  condition.  Of  course  the  very 
young  like  to  be  engaged.  The  very  young 
who  have  healthy  tastes  like  everything. 
They  are  usually  delighted  to  become  en- 
46 


Swains   and    Damsels 

gaged,  and  glad  to  be  married  if  possible, 
and  if  being  married  is  not  immediately 
practicable  they  are  glad  to  keep  on  being 
engaged.  If  youth  were  a  continuous  state 
the  chief  objection  to  long  engagements 
would  disappear.  The  trouble  is  that  youth 
is  a  skittish  and  fugitive  thing,  here  before 
you  fully  realize  it,  and  gone  before  you 
know  it.  It  is  particularly  so  in  girls.  A 
man  is  marriageable  up  to  the  time  when  he 
loses  his  courage,  and  even  then  his  case  is 
not  hopeless,  for  his  powers  of  evasion  and 
resistance  may  wane  in  the  same  degree  as 
his  daring,  and  even  when  his  will  has 
grown  too  feeble  to  carry  him  through  a 
courtship  he  may  still  be  chosen  and  landed 
by  some  woman  who  knows  her  mind  and 
sees  in  him  the  making  of  a  desirable  hus 
band.  A  bachelor  of  fifty,  with  nothing 
against  him  but  his  age,  will  do  to  marry  at 
a  pinch  or  in  times  of  scarcity,  and  of  course 
a  widower  of  that  age  in  good  standing  may 
be  an  excellent  match.  But  with  a  spinster 
of  fifty  it  is  different.  While  she  may  be  a 
charming  person,  an  ornament  to  society, 
and  an  adorable  companion,  there  is  no 
47 


Lucid   Intervals 


doubt  that  in  ordinary  estimation  she  will 
be  felt  to  have  passed  the  marrying  age. 
There  would  be  no  serious  objection  to  an 
engagement  of  an  infinite  duration  provided 
both  the  parties  to  it  were  over  fifty,  but  for 
marrying,  the  earlier  years  of  life,  especially 
of  a  woman's  life,  are  better,  and  society  has 
sound  reasons  to  be  jealous  of  the  expendi 
ture  of  too  many  of  those  years  in  mere 
betrothal. 

There  is  a  sentiment,  too,  that  an  engage 
ment  that  comes  to  nothing,  while  bad  for 
both  the  parties  to  it,  is  worse  for  the  girl 
than  for  the  man.  It  is  apt  to  happen  that 
a  man  who  falls  in  love,  falls  in  love,  more 
or  less,  with  womankind,  and  if  he  falls  out 
with  the  specific  object  of  his  adoration,  he  is 
apt  presently  to  make  his  loss  good  in  some 
other  quarter.  But  ordinarily  it  seems  not 
to  happen  so,  at  least  not  so  much  so,  with 
women.  Girls,  as  a  rule,  don't  fall  in  love 
with  the  whole  of  mankind,  but  only  with 
a  single  individual,  and  if  the  individual 
turns  out  to  be  untrue,  or  unsuitable,  or  im 
possible  for  any  reason,  and  the  engage 
ment  is  broken,  the  mishap  in  the  woman's 
48 


Swains   and   Damsels 

case  may  have  enduring  consequences.  To 
be  sure  it  is  not  so  bad  to  be  engaged  to  an 
impossible  man  and  break  the  engagement 
as  it  is  to  be  engaged  to  such  a  person  and 
marry  him,  but  that  is  cold  comfort,  espe 
cially  if  the  engagement  has  lasted  a  good 
while,  and  during  its  continuance  has  great 
ly  modified  the  natural  interest  which  the 
woman  would  have  taken  in  the  rest  of  man 
kind. 

Heaven  forbid  that  any  hireling  scribe 
should  set  himself  to  invent  reasons  why 
young  persons  should  not  fall  in  love.  That 
is  what  they  are  there  for.  That  is  what 
the  Creator  intended.  Being  honestly  and 
heartily  in  love  is,  perhaps,  the  best  fun  for 
the  money  that  life  offers.  No  one  but 
parents  and  guardians  and  misanthropes 
and  prudes  and  pelicans  object  to  it.  And 
shall  not  young  persons  who  fall  in  love  be 
come  engaged?  Not  necessarily.  If  they  can 
see  their  way  to  getting  married  some  time, 
let  them  become  engaged  and  announce  it, 
but  if  not,  they  had  better  just  keep  on 
loving  one  another  informally.  That  is  a 
good  thing  in  itself.  It  warms  the  heart, 
D  49 


Lucid    Intervals 


keeps  one  thin  and  comfortable,  and  helps 
support  the  post-office.  Judicious  persons 
will  probably  agree,  however,  that  when  the 
current  of  affection  proves  steady,  and  a 
formal  engagement  is  desired,  it  is  justifiable 
on  remoter  prospects  where  the  associates  are 
both  young  than  when  they  are  older.  A 
girl  of  twenty  who  entangles  herself  in  an 
engagement  which  promises  to  last  five 
years  is  much  less  open  to  criticism  than  if 
she  were  ten  years  older.  The  man  may 
deteriorate  on  her  hands  in  five  years — 
there  is  that  risk  certainly — but  if  he  wears 
well,  and  she  is  married  at  twenty-five,  what 
is  there  to  complain  of  ? 

The  extreme  impatience  with  long  engage 
ments  that  one  finds  in  certain  persons  seems 
to  indicate  an  exaggerated  distrust  in  hu 
man  nature.  There  are  folks,  like  my  good 
Aunt  Jane,  who  seem  to  keep  in  a  state  of 
chronic  uneasiness  about  lovers  until  she 
has  been  to  church  with  them  and  seen  them 
stand  up  before  the  priest.  There  is  no  satis 
fying  Aunt  Jane  by  anything  less  than  a 
wedding.  If  she  suspects  that  lovers  have 
a  private  understanding  and  are  deferring 
5° 


Swains    and    Damsels 

their  engagement  until  they  get  ready  to 
announce  it,  she  is  always  for  poulticing  the 
situation  and  bringing  it  promptly  to  a  head. 
She  is  sure,  in  such  a  case,  that  the  man  has 
no  real  intentions,  that  it  is  a  mere  pastime 
with  him,  and  that  presently  he  will  make 
his  bow  and  pass  out  and  on,  leaving  more 
or  less  blight  behind  him.  If  an  engage 
ment  is  announced  and  premises  to  be  of 
liberal  continuance,  she  likes  that  scarcely 
any  better.  In  that  case,  she  expects  the 
man  to  give  his  whole  attention  to  getting 
married  just  as  soon  as  possible.  She  ex 
pects  him  to  rise  early,  work  hard,  and  live 
frugally.  He  is  not  to  spend  his  money  on 
clubs  or  flowrers  or  dinners  or  fine  raiment 
or  pleasures  of  any  sort,  but  to  hoard  it. 
She  has  no  patience  at  all  with  grown-up  men 
who  monopolize  idly  the  attention  of  girls, 
who  ought  to  be  pairing  off  and  settling 
down.  When  an  exclusive  intimacy  becomes 
conspicuously  chronic  and  makes  no  claim 
to  be  anything  more  than  a  mere  platonic 
friendship,  it  gets  no  standing  at  all  in  Aunt 
Jane's  estimation.  She  is  down  on  all  that. 
Still,  folks  seem  to  regulate  their  entangle- 
51 


Lucid    Intervals 


ments  without  much  regard  for  Aunt  Jane's 
feelings  about  them.  Uncle  Thomas  has 
averred  that  the  long  engagement  between 
young  Tadpole  and  Herminia  Scropple  was 
a  serious  expense  to  him,  because  of  the 
extra  ice  he  had  to  take  in  during  those  y ears 
on  Aunt  Jane's  account.  Yet  Herminia 
and  Tadpole  finally  paired  off,  and  Aunt 
Jane  cooled  down  and  went  to  the  wedding, 
and  they  are  now  living  in  a  Harlem  flat — 
and  happily,  so  far  as  any  one  knows.  I 
know  of  other  similar  cases ;  and  Aunt 
Jane  knows  of  other  dissimilar  cases,  and 
if  you  could  hear  her  state  them,  you  would 
probably  be  of  her  opinion  on  this  subject. 
But,  after  all,  what  good  does  her  opinion 
and  her  impatience  do  her,  and  what  good 
would  they  do  you  ?  Grown-up  folks  in 
this  country  are  very  apt  to  do  as  they  please, 
both  about  getting  married  and  getting  en 
gaged.  The  young  may  in  some  cases  be 
steered  or  restrained  to  their  profit,  provided 
one  is  well  placed  to  do  it ;  but  to  meddle  to 
advantage  in  the  affairs  of  the  heart  calls 
for  a  great  deal  more  sagacity  than  is  usu 
ally  available  for  that  use. 


Ill 

HUSBANDS    AND    WIVES 


Ill 

HUSBANDS    AND    WIVES 

WHEN  Matilda  Hewson  married  Willis  it 
was  a  surprise  to  her  friends.  She  met  him 
in  Tangier.  Her  friends  did  not  know  him, 
and  do  not  know  him  yet.  She  and  Willis 
live  somewhere  in  the  Sudan,  where  Willis 
has  a  job.  I  am  not  sure  it  is  a  lucrative  job. 
I  suspect  it  isn't.  Very  likely  they  live  in 
a  tent  and  herd  ostriches,  but  sometimes 
when  Matilda  gets  within  reach  of  pen  and 
ink  she  writes  to  her  relatives  and  old  friends. 
One  of  them  quotes  her  as  saying  in  a  recent 
letter  :  "After  all,  I  could  not  have  married 
any  man  but  Willis."  Bear  in  mind  that 
she  was  brought  up  in  easy  circumstances, 
and  was  inured  from  childhood  to  phil 
harmonic  concerts,  the  opera,  the  assem 
blies,  the  newest  books,  the  society  of  the  in- 
55 


Lucid   Intervals 


tellectually  inclined,  and  periodical  pilgrim 
ages  beyond  the  seas,  so  that  a  nomadic 
life  in  the  Sudan  is  a  change  for  her.  Under 
stand  also  that  she  is  a  person  of  such  un 
common  attractions  that,  as  an  old  friend 
said:  "When  she  married  Willis  she  was 
virtually  engaged  to  one  admirable  man, 
and  had  three  or  four  others  hanging  around 
waiting  for  a  vacancy,  so  that  she  couldn't 
have  fallen  out  of  a  third -story  window 
without  dropping  into  the  clutches  of  a  hus 
band  at  least  six  times  more  desirable  on 
economic  grounds  than  Willis  was."  And 
yet  she  writes,  as  the  fruit  of  reflection  and 
experience,  and  possibly  of  fasting,  that 
there  was  no  possible  man  for  her  but  Willis. 
There's  a  good  wife  !  That  is  the  proper 
attitude.  Once  the  husband  is  acquired, 
the  more  inextricably  he  is  confounded  with 
destiny  the  better.  Make  the  mystery  of 
choice  seem  to  vindicate  itself,  and  the  mere 
fact  that  it  is  impenetrable  can  avail  nothing 
for  its  disparagement.  The  great  general 
rule  about  husbands  from  the  standpoint  of 
wives  is — make  the  best  of  them.  Every 
truly  wise  woman  doubtless  begins  to  put 


Husbands   and    Wives 

that  maxim  to  use  on  her  way  back  from  the 
altar  rail  to  the  church  door,  and  continues 
to  use  it  as  long  as  she  has  a  husband.  It 
has  the  merit  of  being  just  as  applicable  by 
husbands  to  wives  as  by  wives  to  husbands, 
and,  indeed,  it  seems  doubtful  whether  any 
general  rule,  formulated  for  the  regulation 
of  persons  committed  to  a  state  of  matri 
mony,  will  be  worth  much,  unless  it  has 
this  property  of  working  both  ways.  Still, 
though  there  are  men  who-  have  a  share  of 
the  qualities  which  are  commonly  best  de 
veloped  in  women,  and  women  who  are 
strong  in  qualities  that  are  usually  more 
characteristic  of  men,  somehow  this  virtue 
of  making  the  best  of  a  spouse  is  one  that  is 
more  hopefully  commended  to  women  than 
to  men. 

The  good  man's  usual  way  of  making  the 
best  of  a  wife  whose  need  of  that  sort  of  con 
sideration  is  especially  exigent  is  to  immerse 
himself  up  to  his  eyes  in  work,  forget  do 
mestic  irritations  and  shortcomings  in  his 
tasks,  and  constrain  the  world  to  make  up  to 
him  in  .various  prizes  for  anything  his  home 
may  lack.  Men  whose  homes  were  not  as 
57 


Lucid    Intervals 


attractive  to  them  as  they  might  have  been 
have  often  made  an  opportunity  of  neces 
sity  and  served  their  fellow -men  with  a 
very  abandonment  of  zeal.  Politicians  have 
grown  into  statesmen  under  the  sharp  spur 
of  domestic  nagging.  Socrates,  with  Xan- 
tippe  sitting  up  for  him,  doubtless  had  need 
of  the  philosophy  he  took  to ;  John  Wesley 
for  forty  years  spent  his  days  on  horseback 
and  his  nights  at  inns,  preaching  the  gospel 
up  and  down  England,  and  doubtless  en 
during  his  absences  from  home  with  the 
more  fortitude  because  Mrs.  Wesley,  when  he 
met  her,  was  far  from  being  a  soothing  com 
panion.  Milton  found  a  strenuous  intellect 
ual  life  a  necessary  alternative  to  trying 
conditions  at  home. 

The  exacting  or  mutinous  wife  who  drives 
a  great  man  out  into  the  world  may  thereby 
make  the  best  of  him  and  do  the  world  a  great 
service.  She  may  even  do  fairly  well  by 
herself,  for  a  man  constrained  by  domestic 
miseries  to  wrestle  hard  with  fortune  may 
rise  high  in  the  world  and  carry  his  wife  up 
with  him.  To  make  the  best  of  a  wife  by 
glutting  her  material  desires  is  one  way, 
58 


Husbands   and    Wives 

and  to  a  multitude  of  women  it  is  a  way 
whereof  the  consolations  are  very  grateful. 
But  it  is  a  second-rate  expedient,  and  we  are 
warranted  in  being  sorry  for  a  good  man 
who  has  a  wife  of  such  quality  that  the  best 
he  can  do  for  her  is  to  find  her  as  much 
money  as  she  wants  to  spend  and  the  social 
position  that  she  craves. 

A  recent  discourse  in  the  Evening  Post,  by 
an  industrious  writer  who  signs  "  Idler  "  to 
The  Ameri-  his  pieces,  conveys  information 

can  wife  about  "  Some  American  Hus 
bands  "  which  may  fairly  be  classed  among 
things  interesting  if  true.  "Idler"  thinks 
that  the  condition  of  the  American  husband 
has  undergone  a  fundamental  change,  and 
that  whereas  formerly  he  was  treated  with 
consideration  and  his  pleasure  consulted, 
now  "  he  turns  the  grindstone  all  the  year 
round  without  a  murmur,  and  his  pretty  ty 
rants  (his  wife  and  daughters)  enjoy  the  ele 
gant  leisure  that  a  century  ago  would  have 
been  considered  a  masculine  luxury."  This 
is  not  an  absolutely  novel  suggestion,  but  is 
familiar  enough  to  make  the  details  of  it,  as 
the  "Idler"  furnishes  them,  worth  inspecting. 
59 


Lucid    Intervals 


He  credits  America  with  producing  the 
model  husband — the  husband,  that  is,  who, 
unlike  his  English,  French,  or  German 
contemporary,  shapes  his  life  precisely  ac 
cording  to  the  wishes  of  his  wife.  In  other 
lands,  he  finds,  the  husband  is  all-powerful, 
and  the  year's  plans  are  made  to  suit  his 
occupations  and  convenience.  Here  the 
ladies  of  the  house  make  the  plans,  and 
when  they  are  decided  the  "  head  of  the 
house "  is  called  in  to  sign  the  checks. 
"  Idler's  "  American  man  is  trained  to  give 
all  and  expect  little  in  return.  He  is  taught 
to  look  for  no  settlement  or  portion  with  his 
wife,  but  the  fact  that  his  expectations  in 
that  particular  are  usually  realized  does  not 
hinder  the  lady,  however  empty-handed  she 
comes,  from  shaping  her  new  family  life 
wholly  according  to  her  own  whims.  "  Idler  " 
tells  a  heart-rending  story  about  a  man  who 
wanted  domesticity,  and  married  a  girl  out 
of  an  impecunious  family,  with  the  expecta 
tion  that,  having  a  limited  experience  of  the 
delights  of  society,  she  would  be  willing  to 
stay  at  home  with  him  while  he  read  books 
of  an  evening.  Alas  !  she  immediately  en- 
60 


Husbands   and    Wives 

larged  her  social  experiences,  became  the 
belle  of  the  fastest  set  in  town,  usurped  pos 
session  of  nine-tenths  of  his  house,  and  led 
him  such  a  dance  that  "  Idler  "  believed  that 
they  had  not  passed  an  evening  at  home, 
whether  in  town  or  in  the  country,  since  they 
were  married. 

At  balls,  at  dinners,  at  the  opera,  "  Idler  " 
finds  the  American  husband,  bored  and 
weary,  but  submissive.  He  likens  him  to 
the  patient  donkeys  of  the  Orient  or  the 
south  of  France,  who  do  all  the  heavy  work 
that  other  beasts  refuse  to  do;  who  are  the 
first  to  begin  the  day's  work  and  the  last 
to  leave  off.  It  is  impossible  to  live  long  in 
the  East,  "Idler"  says,  without  becoming 
attached  to  those  gentle,  willing  animals ; 
and  so,  he  intimates,  one  cannot  contemplate 
the  patient  American  husband  and  his  self- 
abnegation  without  growing  fond  of  him. 

Of  course,  in  a  world  where  there  is  an  im 
mense  variety  of  curiosities,  it  is  conceivable 
that  there  do  exist  such  persons  as  "  Idler  " 
has  described — women  who  know  nothing 
about  domestic  happiness  ;  men  whose  wives 
can  find  no  better  use  for  husbands  than 
61 


Lucid    Intervals 


to  treat  them  as  mere  bases  of  supplies. 
We  all  know  such  persons  ;  but  in  our  ex 
perience  they  are  not  representative,  but 
exceptional.  We  wonder  at  them,  and 
think  with  pity  of  their  barren  lives,  but  we 
don't  think  of  them  as  especially  American. 
Our  supposition  is  that  there  are  such  un 
fortunates  in  all  rich  and  highly  civilized 
countries.  Is  it  possible  that  in  the  society 
which  this  "  Idler  "  frequents  the  character 
istics  he  has  described  are  so  common  as  to 
be  representative  ?  Is  it  possible  that  the 
American  husbands  whom  he  sees  habitu 
ally  are  the  spiritless  wretches  whom  he  de 
scribes,  whose  wives  do  not  respect  them, 
and  whose  misery  their  unmarried  comrades 
flout  ?  Are  the  married  women  of  his  ac 
quaintance  really  such  selfish,  ungentle 
hussies  as  he  makes  them  out  ?  Bless  me  ! 
this  "  Idler  "  has  got  into  bad  company 
somewhere.  He  seems  to  be  of  New  York, 
and  he  talks  of  observations  made  at  balls 
and  dinners  and  at  the  opera.  No  one  seems 
to  go  habitually  to  balls  in  New  York  except 
the  very  young  and  the  very  rich.  "  Idler  " 
must  be  assuming  to  chronicle  the  habits  of 
62 


Husbands   and    Wives 

that  select  body  whom  we  know  as  the  400. 
It  can't  be  possible  that  he  does  it  justice ; 
and  if  he  does,  the  status  that  he  observes 
obtains  in  so  small  a  field  that  it  is  not  a 
thing  of  serious  moment.  The  rest  of  us 
know  a  different  story  about  the  average 
American  wife — that  she  is  a  faithful  woman, 
who  makes  a  home,  who  raises  almost  as 
many  children  as  she  can  afford,  keeps 
them  clothed,  sees  to  their  health  and  their 
education,  makes  all  her  husband's  calls,  and 
tends  to  four-fifths  of  the  social  duties  of  the 
household;  wrestles  strenuously  with  the 
problems  of  housekeeping,  gets  more  for  her 
husband  out  of  his  money  than  he  can  get  for 
himself,  and  pours  her  own  income,  when 
she  happens  to  have  one,  into  the  family 
purse.  That  is  the  American  wife  whom 
we  know  and  esteem,  and  we  have  supposed 
that  if  the  American  husband  is  an  indulgent 
spouse  it  is  because  his  wife  is  fit  to  be  in 
dulged,  because  the  most  pleasure  there  is 
for  him  is  to  be  found  in  her  company,  and 
because  to  promote  her  happiness  is  his  way 
of  having  fun. 

One  thing  that  seems  to  support  our  view 
63 


Lucid   Intervals 


of  the  American  wife  is  that  she  is  in  brisk 
request  abroad.  If  she  were  the  selfish, 
portionless,  exacting  creature  that  "  Idler  " 
makes  out,  the  Europeans,  who  are  supposed 
to  be  such  good  judges  of  wives,  wouldn't 
have  her  at  any  price.  But  what  is  the 
truth  ?  Is  it  not  matter  of  common  remark, 
and  indeed  of  complaint,  that  Europeans  of 
all  nations  and  ranks  show  a  strong  pro 
pensity  to  marry  American  women,  and 
that  even  the  women  of  the  very  circle  in 
New  York,  on  the  habits  of  which  "  Idler  ° 
seems  to  have  based  his  strictures,  seem  to 
find  no  trouble  at  all  in  making  European 
alliances  when  they  are  so  inclined.  No 
country  in  Europe  makes  any  effort  to  keep 
American  women  out.  In  their  case  there 
is  no  pretext  of  a  San  Jose  scale,  or  that  the}7 
are  imperfectly  cured,  or  put  up  in  deceptive 
packages,  or  anything  of  that  sort.  They 
have  been  welcomed  in  England,  France, 
Germany — everywhere.  It  could  not  be  so 
if  they  were  the  undisciplined,  grasping 
creatures  that  "  Idler  "  makes  out.  The  in 
ference  seems  warranted  that  either  "Idler's  " 
observations  are  of  so  narrow  a  scope  as  to  be 
64 


Husbands   and    Wives 

unimportant,  or  that  there  is  something  very 
much  amiss  about  his  men.  Perhaps  his 
hag-ridden  husbands  are  uninteresting  or 
undeserving  persons  whose  companionship 
is  so  unremunerative  that  their  wives  are 
driven  to  "  society  "  and  other  desperate  ex 
pedients  by  the  absence  of  simple  and  whole 
some  satisfactions  at  home. 

At   any   rate,  there   are   also   American 
writers  who  find  bugaboos  among  our  men. 

AS  to  Marry-   One  of  tnem> in  a  contemporary 

ing  Men  of     newspaper,  lately  warned  girls 

Talent        Qf  a  marriageabie  age  to  beware 

of  men  of  exceptional  talent,  and  if  they 
would  seek  safety  to  choose  husbands  from 
the  class  of  industrious  mediocrity.  The  or 
dinary  humdrum  working-man,  who  leaves 
his  house  early  in  the  morning  and  stays 
away  all  day,  is,  in  this  writer's  opinion, 
the  safest  man  to  marry.  He  distrusts 
men  of  genius,  and  in  evidence  of  how  ill 
adapted  they  are  to  make  their  wives  com 
fortable  he  cites  the  experiences  of  Xan- 
tippe,  and  of  the  wives  of  Milton,  Byron, 
Shelley,  Dick  Steele,  Leigh  Hunt,  Dickens, 
and  Carlyle.  He  does  not  believe  that  Dr. 
E  65 


Lucid   Intervals 


Johnson   or    Poe    made   satisfactory   hus 
bands. 

It  does  not  seem  as  if  his  warnings  were 
necessary.        True, 
the  man  of  genius 
who  is  strong  in  one 
or  two  points  and 
conspicuously    de 
fective  in  all  others 
seems  not   particu 
larly   well   adapted 
to    make    a    home 
happy;      but   still, 
this  is   an    age   of 
specialists,    and    a 
man  who  has  one 

or.twovery  strong 

points  can  some 
times  turn  them  to 
good  enough  ac 
count  to  afford  to 
be  lacking  in  a  good 
many  others.  Rud- 

yard  Kipling,  for  example,  who  is  such  an 

uncommonly  good  hand  at  making  verses 

and  putting  stories  together,  is  said  to  be  a 

66 


BEWARE    OF    MEN    OF    EXCEP 
TIONAL   TALENT 


Husbands   and    Wives 

poor  chore-man,  almost  imbecile  in  his  in 
capacity  to  use  tools,  helpless  in  the  pres 
ence  of  a  hammer  or  saw,  and  abashed 
by  a  broken  caster  on  a  parlor  chair.  Of 
course  that  is  sad,  but  it  does  not  weigh 
much  in  support  of  our  friend's  conclu 
sions.  In  the  present  generation,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  the  domestic  curse  seems 
to  have  been  pretty  effectually  removed 
from  men  of  exceptional  talent.  One  may 
tell  of  half  a  dozen  men  of  letters  who 
did  not  prove  very  good  to  marry,  but  read 
the  names  in  the  other  column.  What 
exemplary  domestic  characters  were  Thack 
eray,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Disraeli,  Glad 
stone,  du  Maurier,  and,  among  Americans, 
Hawthorne,  Cooper,  Longfellow,  Holmes, 
Lowell !  Irving  died  a  bachelor,  but  a  very 
gentle  and  dutiful  one,  and  so  did  Whittier. 
Take  the  two  most  conspicuous  literary 
lights  of  our  own  day.  Stevenson  was  an 
invalid  and  a  nomad,  a  man  of  genius,  with 
every  apparent  excuse  for  being  an  indiffer 
ent  husband,  instead  of  which  he  seems  to 
have  been  a  delightful  man  to  live  with, 
fairly  provident,  always  kind,  and  industri- 
67 


Lucid   Intervals 


ous  beyond  the  limits  of  his  strength.  So 
report  represents  Mr.  Kipling  as  a  man 
who  finds  his  chief  pleasures  at  home,  and 
as  a  kind,  sober,  and  diligent  citizen. 

Our  critic's  impressions  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
sufficient  reason  for  wise  maidens  to  discrim 
inate  against  men  who  have  nothing  worse 
the  matter  with  them  than  that  they  are 
exceptionally  clever.  Ability  won't  make 
up  for  serious  defects  of  character.  Don't 
marry  a  brute,  however  clever  he  is,  nor  a 
man  more  selfish  than  is  proper  in  a  man, 
nor  any  sort  of  bad  man  whatever ;  but 
don't  discriminate  against  intelligence,  even 
when  it  exceeds  the  usual  limits.  A  man  of 
sense  will  make  his  wife  happy  if  he  can. 
More  women  suffer  from  a  lack  of  intelli 
gence  in  husbands  than  from  an  excess  of 
it.  Intelligence  helps  a  man  to  make  a  liv 
ing,  helps  him  to  make  himself  agreeable, 
and  helps  him  to  appreciate  the  importance 
of  doing  both.  Girls  about  to  marry  should 
guard,  perhaps,  against  choosing  men  who 
are  so  clever  that  they  won't  care  for  their 
wives,  but  they  must  take  thought  also 
68 


Husbands   and    Wives 

against  choosing  men  who  are  so  dull  that 
living  with  them  will  be  uninteresting.  It 
is  just  as  bad — worse  perhaps — to  marry  a 
man  who  does  not  interest  you  as  to 
marry  one  whose  thoughts  you  cannot 
share. 

Everybody,  at  one  time  or  another,  con 
siders  and  discusses  marriage,  for  it  is  one 
A  Drawback  °^  the  vital  interests  in  life, 
to  Marry-  Second  marriages  receive  a 
much  less  universal  considera 
tion  because  comparatively  few  persons 
find  themselves  in  a  position  where  they 
have  to  reach  a  decision  as  to  their  ex 
pediency.  Still,  they  have  necessary  in 
cidents  that  seem  proper  to  be  discussed. 
There  are  many  excellent  reasons  why  I 
should  wish  for  a  better  acquaintance  with 
Mrs.  Roland.  She  is  one  of  the  most  en 
gaging  of  women,  and  possessed  of  an  ex 
ceptionally  lively  sense  of  humor  and  of  re 
markable  gifts  of  oral  expression.  I  am 
sure  that  if  I  should  have  the  good-luck  to 
seem  worthy  of  her  attention  in  discourse, 
she  would  have  plenty  to  say  that  it  would 
be  profitable  for  me  to  hear,  and  that  the 
69 


Lucid  Intervals 


process  of  absorbing  her  ideas  would  be  joy 
ous.  Whenever  the  lottery  that  seats  the 
guests  at  dinner-parties  makes  me  her  fortu 
nate  companion,  I  shall  rejoice  and  count  on 
spending  a  pleasant  evening,  and  on  carry 
ing  home  in  my  mind  some  serviceable  ideas 
and  terms  of  speech.  There  is  just  one 
little  cloud  in  the  sky  of  my  anticipations, 
and  that  is  that  I  shall  be  burning  to  talk 
to  her  about  Simeon  Oliver,  who  was  her 
husband  while  he  yet  lingered  on  earth,  and 
before  she  took  the  seat  she  graces  so  at 
the  end  of  Richard  Roland's  dinner-table. 
Simeon  and  I  went  to  school  together,  and  I 
have  a  vivid  recollection  of  his  quick  eyes 
and  sandy  hair,  of  his  eloquence  in  our 
school  debating  club,  of  the  verses  he  wrote, 
and  his  excellent  performance  in  left  field, 
and  at  the  bat,  on  our  school  nine.  He  was 
a  remarkable  youth;  a  large  figure  in  our 
school,  and  just  enough  my  senior  to  loom  up 
in  my  vision  a  good  deal  larger,  doubtless, 
than  he  really  was.  I  never  saw  him  or 
heard  of  him  after  he  left  school,  and  that 
was  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  and  what  he 
did,  and  what  became  of  him,  and  how  he  fell 
70 


Husbands  and  Wives 

in  with  the  clever  Matilda  Lent,  and  what 
sort  of  a  life  he  led  her,  and  whether  his  de 
cease  was  a  bereavement  or  a  release  to  her, 
are  queries  which  the  sight  or  even  the 
thought  of  the  delightful  Mrs.  Roland  always 
brings  trooping  into  my  mind.  She  could 
tell  me  all  about  Simeon,  but  when  I  do  meet 
her  I  shall  have  to  put  this  burning  subject 
(no  offence  to  Oliver)  aside  and  prattle  on 
about  the  ordinary  things,  and  trust  to  luck 
to  turn  the  talk  into  some  channel  in  which 
both  our  minds  may  run  with  something 
like  ardor.  For  all  that  I  know  to  the  con 
trary,  she  is  perfectly  satisfied  with  Roland, 
and  has  no  occasion  to  sift  the  sands  of 
memory  through  anybody's  screen.  But 
even  if  she  were  not,  it  would  not  much  help 
matters,  for,  I  suppose,  you  can't  talk  to  a 
remarried  woman  at  a  dinner-party  about 
her  first  husband,  especially  if  one  of  her 
subsequent  husbands  is  present.  There  is 
no  rule  against  it,  but  the  timorous  senti 
ment  that  conventional  persons  have  that 
it  would  not  be  suitable  is  probably  well 
founded. 
That  is  one  of  the  most  awkward  and  ob- 


Lucid  Intervals 


jectionable  things  about  marrying  again. 
You  may  bury  a  husband  and  keep  his 
memory  alive,  but  when  you  marry  a  second 
one  you  usually  have,  to  a  certain  extent,  to 
bury  a  memory  which  may  be  very  much 
alive  and  in  no  need  of  interment.  It  is  a 
great  pity  that  that  is  so,  or  so  nearly  so  as 
it  is,  since  for  many  persons  who  have  lost 
their  mates  prematurely  it  is  far  better  to 
find  a  new  one,  if  that  is  possible,  than  to  go 
through  life  alone.  Successful  marriages, 
though  traditionally  made  in  heaven,  are 
made  for  use  in  this  world,  and  when  we  are 
able  to  consult  the  celestial  records  we  shall 
find  that  second  marriages  make  a  hand 
some  showing  there.  That  a  man  once  do 
mesticated  and  inured  to  petticoat  influences 
should  be  left  while  still  young  to  drag  out 
existence  unprotected  and  unconsoled  is  a 
condition  of  things  that  is  abhorrent  to  nat 
ure.  If  he  has  young  children  and  is  a  mere 
ordinary  man,  he  needs  help ;  if  he  has  no 
children,  there  is  still  more  reason  for  him  to 
make  provision  for  his  future.  The  case  is 
not  much  better  for  young  widows,  unless 
they  have  children  enough  to  give  them  an 
72 


Husbands  and   Wives 

object  in  life,  and  income  enough  to  maintain 
them  during  its  attainment.  Not  even  the 
immense  labor  of  assimilating  a  new  spouse's 
relatives,  appalling  as  it  is,  should  hinder 
second  marriages  which  are  suitable  and 
merely  await  the  co-operation  of  parties  who 
are  disposed  to  consent.  There  is  some 
prejudice  against  step-mothers  and  step 
fathers,  but  it  is  not  very  deep.  A  woman 
good  enough  to  be  a  good  wife  commonly 
makes  a  good  step-mother,  and  a  good  man 
commonly  makes  a  good  step-father.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  relationship  which  need 
be  too  great  a  trial  for  ordinary  human  virtue. 
One  reads  of  harsh  step-parents  in  story 
books  and  sometimes  in  the  newspapers,  and 
it  is  undeniable  that  they  do  exist,  but  I 
never  personally  knew  a  step-mother  who 
caught  her  step-children  young  enough 
who  did  not  mother  them  well  and  love  them 
truly,  and  win  their  affection.  What  objec 
tions  there  are  to  second  marriages  are  al 
most  exclusively  sentimental,  and  turn  on 
this  natural  unwillingness  to  bury  a  memory. 
But  of  course  a  sentimental  objection  is  a 
mighty  influential  thing  and  very  hard  to 
73 


Lucid   Intervals 


cope  with  when  it  is  strong.  It  is  a  pity 
about  this  one,  for  it  sometimes  makes  mis 
chief.  There  is  the  case  of  the  young  wid 
ow  Mead,  so  admirable  and 
charming  a  person,  and  yet 
so  imperfectly  suited  to  light 
the  battle  of  life  without 
daily  help.  She  would  be 
twice  as  useful  in  the  world, 
and  many,  many  times  hap 
pier,  if  she  could  bring  her 
self  to  replace  Henry  Mead. 
But  it  is  doubtful  if  she  ever 
does.  She 
loved  him 
dearly,  and  I 
fear  his  shad- 
ow  will  al- 
wrays  be  dear- 

"  AUNT  JANE"  i        Xl 

er  to  her  than 

any  other  man's  sunshine.  I  can't  think 
he  would  wish  it  to  be  so.  He  was  a  man 
of  excellent  sense,  and  I  only  wish  she 
could  have  his  counsel  in  this  matter.  I 
am  sure  he  would  not  let  her  turn  away 
a  man  whose  love  might  brighten  her  life 
74 


Husbands  and   Wives 

because  a  man  who  had  brightened  it  was 
dead.  It  would  be  far  easier  for  her  and  for 
whatever  good  man  may  happen  to  be  court 
ing  her  at  this  time  if  there  was  less  of  this 
reprehensible  feeling  that  makes  it  seem 
doubtful  manners  to  discourse  with  the  re 
married  about  their  previous  mates.  It  is  a 
limitation  that  a  little  strength  of  character 
may  rise  above.  I  shall  never  forget  that 
after  Robert  Wade  had  died  and  left  his 
young  and  childless  wife  a  pile  of  money  as 
high  as  a  hay-stack,  and  after  she  in  due 
time  had  married  again,  how  I  met  her  one 
day  in  company,  and  she,  remembering  me, 
but  not  quite  sure,  asked  Horace  Brace, 
whom  I  was  with,  if  I  was  not  "  a  friend  of 
Robert."  It  made  me  feel  that  she  hadn't 
buried  any  more  of  Robert  than  she  could 
help,  even  though  she  had  given  him  a  suc 
cessor,  and  I  liked  it  in  her. 

My  Uncle  Thomas  holds  that  one  of  the 
chief  inducements  to  marry  a  widow  is  the 
conversation  that  ought  to  result  from  her 
enlarged  experience  of  life,  and  that  to  dis 
courage  her  from  talking  about  her  first  hus 
band  would  be  to  cripple  her  powers  of  nar- 
75 


Lucid  Intervals 


ration  and  entertainment,  and  would  be  very 
obtuse  and  short-sighted.  He  will  never 
marry,  he  says,  any  woman  of  so  narrow  a 
mind  as  not  to  be  interested  in  his  discourses 
about  the  characteristics  and  perfections  of 
my  Aunt  Jane.  Whereat  Aunt  Jane,  who 
is  remarkably  durable  in  her  aspects,  smiles 
incredulity  touched  with  gentle  scorn.  Still 
all  truly  wise  men  must  respect  my  uncle's 
attitude,  and  no  doubt  when  Mr.  Choate 
made  his  celebrated  admission  that  if  not 
himself  he  would  rather  be  Mrs.  Choate's 
second  husband,  he  had  in  mind  the  great 
benefit  and  pleasure  that  that  gentleman 
might  expect  to  sustain  in  his  conversations 
with  his  wife  about  the  virtues  and  idiosyn 
crasies  of  his  predecessor. 


IV 

EDUCATION 


IV 

EDUCATION 

HAVE  you  noticed  how  much  uneasiness 
there  is  about  for  fear  some  one  will  get  too 
The  Fear  of  much  education  ?  I  dare  say  it 

Education  nas  been  so  since  long  before 
letters  were  invented,  and  possibly  there 
have  always  been  good  reasons  for  it.  So 
far  as  appears,  it  is  an  uneasiness  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  education,  or 
think  they  have  it,  in  behalf  of  those  who 
have  less,  or  who  ought  to  have  less.  You 
rarely  hear  a  serious  complaint  from  any 
person  that  he  himself  has  learned  too 
much.  It  is  almost  always  a  complaint 
that  some  one  else  has  been  educated  out  of 
conceit  with  his  station,  or  the  expression 
of  a  fear  that  some  one  will  be.  Mr.  Rider 
Haggard  notes  that  rural  England  is  being 
79 


Lucid .  Intervals 


stripped  of  its  population,  and  quotes, 
though  he  does  not  endorse,  the  opinion, 
"  Too  much  education."  Mr.  Carnegie  fears 
that  too  much  time  is  wasted  on  polite  and 
academical  learning  that  ought  to  be  in 
vested  in  knowledge  that  is  practical.  Mr. 
C.  P.  Huntington  feared  that  too  many  lads 
were  spending  too  much  time  at  school,  and 
wasting  in  college  years  that  they  could  not 
spare.  Dr.  Donald,  of  Boston,  disparages 
colleges  for  girls,  and  avers  that  college- 
bred  girls  are  apt  to  be  out  of  harmony  with 
their  environment  and  indisposed  to  turn 
their  hands  to  ordinary  duties.  So  from  the 
South  comes  the  complaint  that  too  many  of 
the  negroes  are  getting  the  wrong  kind  of 
education ;  that  they  learn  to  read,  but  do 
not  learn  to  be  good ;  that  the  worst  negro 
criminals  can  usually  read  and  write,  and 
that  the  better-educated  black  men  are  apt 
to  go  idle  for  lack  of  employment  that  befits 
their  attainments.  So  it  goes  ;  and  the  up 
setting  part  of  it  is  that  in  all  these  com 
plaints  and  deprecations  there  seems  to  be 
some  flavor  of  truth.  When  Aunt  Jane 
complains  of  the  dearth  of  competent  hired 
80 


Education 


girls,  and  the  great  cost  of  incompetent  ones, 
and  lays  it  all  to  the  public  schools,  we  sus 
pect  she  is  not  speaking  mere  vanities.  And 
all  the  while  the  school-master  is  abroad, 
working  long  hours  for  moderate  wages,  and 
disordering  the  economics  of  the  universe. 
We  are  all  being  educated  out  of  our  proper 
spheres.  Mr.  Carnegie  ought  to  be  making 
horseshoe  nails  with  hammer  and  anvil; 
Mr.  Huntington  should  have  kept  a  general 
store  in  a  country  village  ;  English  Hodge 
ought  to  be  hedging,  ditching,  or  ploughing, 
fourteen  hours  a  day  in  the  service  of  Farmer 
Blount ;  Dr.  Donald  ought  to  be  preaching 
for  $600  a  year,  instead  of  being  rector  of 
Trinity  Church ;  all  the  college-taught  girls 
in  New  England  ought  to  be  making  beds 
and  pie  and  shirts,  and  saying  "  Sir  "  to  the 
minister ;  Aunt  Jane  ought  to  be  teaching 
school ;  and  the  negroes  in  the  South  ought 
to  be  happy  contrabands,  industrious  and 
docile,  but  unlettered. 

But  it  is  too  late  to  turn  back.     The  golden 

age  when  the  little  knowledge  that  is  such  a 

dangerous  thing  was  scarce  has  passed.     In 

this  country  education  spreads  and  catches 

F  81 


Lucid  Intervals 


like  the  measles  ;  it  is  almost  as  bad  in 
Great  Britain,  and  worse,  if  anything,  in 
Germany.  Primary  education  is  almost 
universal.  Secondary  education  grows 
commoner.  Millionaires  give  freely  to  pro 
mote  it.  The  taxes — the  sacred  taxes — 
which  should  only  be  spent  for  things  essen 
tial  to  the  public  welfare,  are  diverted  to  some 
extent  to  the  support  of  academies  and  high- 
schools.  The  means  of  education  are  not 
only  abundant,  but  to  a  great  extent  they  are 
free,  and  misguided  persons  are  giving  mill 
ions  every  year  to  make  them  freer.  The 
outlook  is  undoubtedly  serious.  Who  is 
going  to  do  the  hard  work  of  the  world — the 
drudgery,  the  heavy  manual  labor — if  every 
one  is  to  have  his  higher  intelligence  culti 
vated  ? 

The  outlook  is  pretty  black,  but  let  us  look 
about  for  solace.  After  all,  the  capacity  to 
read  a  book,  or  at  least  a  newspaper,  is  not 
absolutely  incompatible  with  the  ability  to 
do  hard  manual  work.  There  have  been 
good  cooks  who  could  read  receipt-books, 
and  efficient  house-maids  who  were  profuse 
readers  of  newspapers.  American  farmers 
82 


Education 


have  been  literate  men  for  generations,  yet, 
taking  them  by  and  large,  no  men  are  more 
efficient  in  agriculture  or  do  more  hard  work 
in  a  day.  An  immense  proportion  of  the 
hardest  work  of  the  world  is  done  nowadays 
by  machinery,  and  the  use  and  care  of  ma 
chinery  requires  intelligence.  The  Scotch 
for  many  generations  have  prized  learning 
beyond  rubies  ;  and  not  only  the  learning 
that  is  practical,  but  that  which  is  abstruse 
and  polite ;  but  the  Scotch  have  made  out 
pretty  well,  and  filled  the  earth  not  only  with 
preachers  and  pedagogues,  but  with  engi 
neers.  The  American  mechanic  is  as  handy 
with  his  hands  as  with  his  head.  There  is 
no  more  efficient  labor  in  the  world  than  his. 
Somehow  the  work  of  the  world  is  being 
done.  No  one  is  building  pyramids  on  a 
large  scale,  but  was  there  ever  so  much  use 
ful  work  in  the  process  of  accomplishment 
as  there  is  at  present,  and  were  there  ever  so 
many  hands  that  were  qualified  to  forward  it? 
The  people  who  are  suffering  because  of 
education  seem  to  be  those  who  have  not  got 
it.  It  is  they  who  are  falling  behind ;  they 
and  the  countries  that  have  neglected  to  pro- 
83 


Lucid   Intervals 


vide  them  with  schools.  Primary  education 
is  a  necessity  in  these  times.  If  its  first- 
fruits  are  not  always  satisfactory,  as  in  the 
case  of  some  of  the  negroes  in  the  South, 
must  we  not  hope  that  in  such  cases  the  cure 
will  come  by  homoeopathy,  and  that  more 
education  promoting  a  higher  intelligence 
will  be  safer  than  less? 

And  as  to  the  danger  that  secondary  edu 
cation — the  education  of  the  high  -  schools 
and  colleges  and  the  girls'  colleges — will 
become  too  prevalent,  surely  that  will  take 
care  of  itself.  Erudition  is  not  having 
things  all  its  own  wa}^.  There  are  hosts 
of  lads  and  girls  who  cannot  spare  the 
time  for  the  more  advanced  studies,  even 
when  teaching  is  freely  offered.  There  are 
other  hosts  whose  industry  or  mental  ca 
pacity  is  not  of  the  sort  to  make  them  stay  in 
school  any  longer  than  they  have  to.  If 
there  is  any  virtue  in  ignorance,  it  is  not  a 
virtue  for  lack  of  which  we  seem  likely  to 
suffer.  It  holds  out  well,  and  it  would  be 
rash  to  assert  that  the  supply  is  not  likely 
always  to  be  equal  to  the  demand.  Mr. 
Huntington's  doubts  about  a  college  educa- 
84 


Education 


tion  were  no  more  than  the  expression  of  his 
fear  that  it  is  not  worth  to  all  who  try  for  it 
the  time  they  devote  to  it.  Dr.  Donald's 
doubts  about  college  education  for  girls 
chiefly  concern  its  profitableness.  Surely 
this  question  of  profit  can  be  left  to  be  de 
cided  by  practical  tests,  and  we  may  trust 
without  worrying  that  if  the  supply  of 
college  education  is  really  in  excess  of  the 
demand,  and  too  many  men  and  girls  are 
taking  degrees,  the  tendency  will  be  checked 
by  the  operation  of  natural  causes.  Just 
as  soon  as  it  appears  that  a  college  education 
doesn't  pay  except  in  special  cases,  it  will  be 
in  less  demand.  The  men  and  the  women 
who  will  know  that  it  doesn't  pay  will  be 
those  who  have  tried  it,  and  they  will  see  to  it 
that  their  children  don't  make  a  similar 
mistake. 

All  change  is  not  improvement.  Ma 
chinery  has  relieved  mankind  of  a  deal  of 
work  that  was  hard  and  dull,  but  there 
is  a  monotony  .about  the  work  of  tending 
some  machines  that  is  worse  than  hard 
labor.  We  have  to  pay  a  price  for  almost 
everything  that  is  worth  having,  and  we 
85 


Lucid  Intervals 


ought  not  to  expect  to  have  universal  edu 
cation  without  paying  a  price  for  that.  Of 
course  when  education  is  so  very  prevalent 
some  natural-born  rascals  will  get  enough 
of  it  to  make  them  more  dangerous  than  if 
they  were  ignorant.  Of  course  some  of  us 
will  be  educated  out  of  our  proper  spheres, 
and  it  may  take  some  time  to  settle  back  into 
them.  But  does  not  education  elevate  the 
spheres  themselves?  Are  not  the  condi 
tions  of  life  and  of  labor  changing  quite  as 
fast  as  people  are  changing  through  edu 
cation  ?  Must  it  not  happen  that  before 
the  masses  of  the  people  have  learned  to 
read  and  write  and  cipher,  and  think  with  a 
fluency  that  unfits  them  for  their  tasks,  the 
tasks  will  have  adapted  themselves  to  the 
people?  An  individual  may  be  educated 
into  helplessness,  but  surely  not  a  nation. 
The  world  may  have  a  good  deal  to  fear  from 
the  activities  of  the  school-master,  but  its 
concern  need  not  be  for  those  who  are  being 
taught.  The  learners  will  get  along;  but 
as  knowledge  is  power,  and  also  appetite, 
there  is  perhaps  some  cause  for  appre 
hensions  lest  the  new  scholars  may  suc- 
86 


Education 


ceed  in  adding  to  themselves  so  large  a 
share  of  mundane  emoluments  as  to  leave 
considerably  less  to  be  divided  among  their 
rivals. 

How  little  persons  not  immediately  en 
gaged  in  the  business  of  education  know 
Wisdom  jus-  about  what  the  schools  are 
tified  of  Her  teaching  in  any  year,  or  what 
Children  ^  busmess  of  education  cen 
tres  in.  It  is  not  so  clear  that  there  is  so 
very  much  variation  in  the  ultimate  results, 
but  the  means  and  processes  vary  greatly. 
We  observe  that  small  children  go  to  school, 
and  that  after  a  while  they  learn  to  read  and 
write,  and  incidentally  to  spell.  Children 
used  to  learn  to  read  one  letter,  or,  at  least, 
one  syllable,  at  a  time,  and  to  furnish  forth  a 
complete  word  by  piecing  together  its  com 
posite  parts.  Now,  rumor  says,  the  method 
is  to  encourage  them  to  grasp  whole  words, 
long  or  short,  at  once,  by  instantaneous  ob 
servation,  or,  as  often  happens,  by  an  effort 
of  the  imagination.  When  the  word  grasped 
is  the  word  the  letters  spell,  that  is  observa 
tion.  When  it  is  some  other  word,  that  is 
imagination.  The  development  of  either 
87 


Lucid    Intervals 


faculty  is  held  by  contemporary  educators 
to  be  useful. 

We  are  glad  to  have  our  children  acquire 
whatever  is  being  imparted  by  whatever 
methods  commend  themselves  to  the  peda 
gogic  experience  of  the  day.  Nine-tenths  of 
us  trust  to  schools  and  school-teachers  to  give 
them  such  learning  as  they  ought  to  have. 
We  don't  bother  ourselves  very  much  about 
how  they  learn  to  read,  so  long  as  they  learn. 
We  choose  the  best  school  we  know,  or  can 
reach,  or  can  afford,  and  after  that  what  lines 
of  learning  and  how  much  are  largely  mat 
ters  between  teacher  and  pupil.  Very  few  of 
us  attempt  to  share  with  our  children  such 
learning  as  we  happen  to  have  attained  our 
selves  ;  it  is  too  continuous  a  labor  to  be  at 
tempted  in  the  intervals  of  other  concerns. 
What,  perhaps,  we  do  hold  ourselves  per 
sonally  bound  to  impart  is  our  wisdom.  All 
of  us  who  believe  we  have  managed  to  secrete 
any  wisdom  value  it  a  great  deal  higher  than 
any  learning  we  may  have  got,  and  are  much 
more  solicitous  that  our  offspring  should 
share  in  it.  We  might,  perhaps,  endure 
that  our  children  should  be  ignorant,  but  we 
88 


Education 


do  not  want  them  to  be  foolish.  We  don't 
feel  hurt  or  imposed  upon  if  they  are  not 
bookish,  or  show  inaptitude  for  the  acquire 
ment  of  polite  accomplishments,  but  if  they 
seem  to  lack  such  gumption  as  we  think  they 
were  entitled  to  inherit,  that  disconcerts  us. 
One  thing  which  we  are  apt  to  wish  of  our 
children  is  that  they  shall  apprehend  their 
relations  to  their  fellow-creatures  from  our 
point  of  view.  We  want  the  human  obliga 
tions,  of  which  we  are  conscious  in  ourselves, 
to  be  operative  in  them.  Civilization  is  so 
largely  a  matter  of  a  man's  attitude  to  his 
neighbor  that  we  want  their  attitude  to  their 
neighbor  to  be  the  most  sagacious  that  we 
know.  We  want  them  to  value  people  some 
what  as  we  value  them,  or,  at  least,  to  value 
them  on  grounds  that  we  consider  valid. 
Folks  who  have  the  same  opinions  as  we 
have  about  other  folks  we  consider  to  be,  on 
the  whole,  sensible  people,  however  their 
theory  of  the  nebular  hypothesis  or  the  ex 
pediency  of  high  protection  may  differ  from 
ours.  If  there  is  anything  our  children  are 
likely  to  get  from  us,  it  is  surely  this  esti 
mate  of  people.  Of  course,  they  must  know 
89 


Lucid    Intervals 


people  before  they  can  have  views  about 
them,  but  if  they  grow  up  with  us  and  share 
our  meals  and  our  talk,  they  are  likely  to 
pick  up  not  only  our  prejudices  about  people, 
but  the  standards  of  conduct  on  which  our 
estimates  are  based. 

If  we  have  so  humble  an  opinion  of  our 
own  standards  and  our  own  discernment  as 
to  think  they  are  a  bad  inheritance,  then  we 
cannot  send  them  to  school  too  soon  or  keep 
them  there  too  continuously,  nor  can  we  be 
too  careful  what  school  we  send  them  to,  for 
schools  have  standards  of  conduct  and  bases 
of  estimate,  too,  and  a  school  that  has  to 
correct  home  standards  has  its  work  cut  out 
for  it,  and  should  have  the  best  possible  sub 
stitute  standard  to  offer. 

Mrs.  Green  and  Mrs.  White  are  both 
somewhat  disconcerted  about  the  prospects 

school  sand  of  their  little  boys,  who  are 
Their  Limita-  expected  to  go  away  to  school 
tions  for  the  first  time  next  fall. 

Mrs.  Green's  husband  entered  her  Thomas 
at  Skidmore  School  at  least  a  dozen  years 
ago,  and  Tommy  is  going  there.  That  is 
why  his  mother  has  misgivings,  and  some- 
go 


Education 


times  passes  the  night-watches  in  medita 
tion.  Mrs.  White's  William  was  not  entered 
at  Skidmore  School  as  early  as  he  should 
have  been,  and  so  Willy  must  go  elsewhere. 
That  bothers  his  mother,  for  she  thinks  very 
highly  of  the  school,  which  is  certainly  an 
excellent  receptacle  for  little  boys,  and  she 
has  weighty  reasons  for  preferring  it  to  any 
other.  She  likes  the  associations  of  Skid- 
more.  To  send  a  boy  there,  where  there  are 
fifty  other  boys  whose  parents  one  knows,  or 
at  least  has  knowledge  of,  is  not  like  sending 
him  off  to  a  strange  place,  to  make  friends 
with  Heaven  knows  who.  It  is  good  for 
any  boy  to  be  at  Skidmore.  He  makes  nice 
acquaintances  there,  is  well  taught,  well 
looked  after,  well  churched  and  grounded  in 
moralities,  and  Mrs.  White  has  been  told 
that  if  he  improves  his  advantages  he  goes 
down  to  Newbridge  with  a  strong  group  of 
comrades,  with  friends  already  in  the  uni 
versity  who  will  look  out  for  his  social  in 
terests,  and  with  every  prospect  of  being  as 
popular  as  his  personal  qualities  warrant, 
and  of  reaping  all  the  advantages  that  social 
popularity  invites.  There  are  lots  of  other 
91 


Lucid  Intervals 


good  schools,  but  Mrs.  White  does  not  know 
of  an}7  other  which  seems  to  her  to  combine 
quite  so  much  that  is  lawfully  desirable  as 
Skidmore,  and  she  wishes  ever  so  much 
that  her  William  was  going  there. 

As  for  Mrs.  Green,  who  has  attained  for 
her  Thomas  this  opportunity  which  in  Mrs. 
White's  estimation  is  so  valuable,  she  won 
ders  a  good  deal  whether  it  is  really  all  that 
it  is  cracked  up  to  be.  She  has  pretty  defi 
nite  ideas  of  what  she  would  like  to  see 
Tommy  grow  into,  and  how  favorable  the 
Skidmore  environment  is  likely  to  be  to  the 
development  which  she  covets  she  does  not 
know.  Mrs.  Green  is  a  good  deal  of  a  demo 
crat — an  unusual  thing  for  a  woman — and 
she  is  something  of  a  philosopher,  which  per 
haps  is  also  unusual.  The  Skidmore  cata 
logue  is  full  of  family  names  that  she  recog 
nizes,  and  as  she  looks  through  it,  it  seems 
to  her  as  if  a  rather  notable  proportion  of  the 
Skidmore  pupils  were  scions  of  exceptionally 
solvent  families.  No  one  seriously  objects 
to  solvency,  even  though  it  is  somewhat 
pronounced,  but,  "  Bless  me  \"  murmurs 
Mrs.  Green,  "  how  rich  these  children's 
92 


Education 


parents  are !  What  sort  of  ideas  about  the 
necessaries  of  life  will  my  Tommy  pick  up 
in  such  company  ?"  But  she  knows  that 
disparity  of  income  goes  for  very  little  among 
boys  at  a  good  school.  "Among  so  many 
lads  from  the  pleasuring  side  of  society  will 
Tommy's  social  side  be  developed  to  the 
detriment  of  his  mentals  ?"  Mrs.  Green 
hopes  not,  and  resolves  that  if  Tommy's 
leaning  that  way  grows  too  pronounced  it 
will  get  small  encouragement  from  home. 
As  for  the  popularity  in  college  to  which 
Skidmore  is  supposed  in  some  measures  to 
lead  up,  Mrs.  Green  has  made  inquiries 
about  that  which  have  left  her  in  doubt 
whether  it  is  a  thing  to  be  more  desired  than 
dreaded.  So  far  as  she  can  learn,  it  is  a 
very  uncertain  test  of  character,  and  offers 
a  very  unreliable  portent  of  future  success. 
What  commonty  goes  by  the  name  of  "  popu 
larity"  at  Newbridge  seems  to  be  that  sort  of 
social  success  which  makes  lads  members  of 
exclusive  social  organizations.  It  is  not  in 
consistent  with  either  strength  or  weakness 
of  character.  It  may  be  a  precursor  of  use 
fulness  in  the  world  or  of  catastrophe  and  the 
93 


Lucid  Intervals 


gold-cure.  It  ought  to  be  based  on  sweet 
ness  and  light.  It  is  in  some  degree ;  but 
it  is  due  to  many  other  things,  too — super 
ficial  things,  many  of  them,  which  have 
little  to  do  with  true  inwardness.  It  may  be 
creditable  and  advantageous ;  it  may  spoil 
the  lad  it  fastens  to ;  it  may  be  a  passing 
incident  that  leaves  no  mark.  For  the  time 
being,  it  is  undoubtedly  pleasant,  but  Mrs. 
Green  does  not  care  to  have  Tommy  find 
college  too  pleasant ;  neither  does  she  want 
him  to  miss  anything  that  is  good.  And  so 
between  the  fear  that  if  he  should  not  go  to 
Skidmore  he  might  miss  too  much  that  is 
good,  and  the  fear  that  if  he  does  go  there  he 
may  not  develop  into  precisely  the  sort  of 
lad  that  she  prefers,  her  mental  peace  is 
quite  as  much  impaired  as  Mrs.  White's. 
The  upshot  of  it  all  is  that  Tommy  Green 
is  going  to  Skidmore,  and  that  Willy  White 
is  going  to  some  other  gool  school,  and  that 
the  worries  of  their  respective  mothers  are 
not  going  to  have  much  practical  effect. 

It  is  natural  for  mothers  to  have  mis 
givings  about  their  boys  of  twelve  or  thirteen 
who  are  going  away  to  school  for  the  first 
94 


Education 


time,  and  to  be  solicitous  to  have  them  go  to 
just  the  right  school,  and  do  precisely  the 
right  things  there,  and  so  learn  to  walk 
precisely  the  most  desirable  chalk-line  when 
they  get  to  college;  but  after  all,  though, 
there  is  a  choice  in  schools,  and  some  are 
better  than  others,  many  are  good,  and  even 
the  best  of  them  seldom  makes  a  boy.  Nas- 
citur  non  fit  applies  to  many  boys  besides 
those  who  grow  up  to  be  poets.  The  best 
luck  that  can  happen  to  a  small  boy  is 
not  to  be  sent  to  a  first-rate  school  (though 
that  is  an  excellent  piece  of  good  fortune), 
but  to  have  first-rate  parents,  to  have  in 
herited  the  best  they  had  to  hand  down,  and 
to  have  been  well  raised  at  home.  think 
they  will  tell  you  at  whatever  school  you 
inquire — at  Skidmore,  or  St.  Michaels,  or 
Exover,  or  any  great  school — that  they  get 
their  boys  ready  made,  and  that  though  they 
do  their  best  to  shape  and  steer  them,  the 
possibilities  of  training  are  very  straitly 
limited.  Into  most  boys  it  is  possible  to  get 
the  necessary  amount  of  Latin  and  Greek, 
and  due  knowledge  of  mathematics,  Eng 
lish,  history,  and  the  other  branches  of  the 
95 


Lucid  Intervals 


tree  of  knowledge,  but  the  things  that 
chiefly  constitute  the  differences  in  men — 
gumption,  discretion,  selection,  leadership, 
all  that  makes  character — are  in  the  child 
when  he  comes,  if  they  are  to  be  in  him 
at  all. 

There  are  great  differences  in  schools — 
differences  in  the  way  boys  are  housed,  fed, 
doctored,  taught,  and  disciplined ;  differ 
ences  in  atmosphere  and  associations,  so 
that  a  thoroughly  good  school  is  one  of  the 
best  things  going.  But  schools  don't  make 
boys,  and,  moreover,  the  social  advantages 
of  select  schools  for  boys  are  apt  to  be  exag 
gerated.  There  are  some  advantages  about 
the  schools  where  your  boy  is  liable  to  meet 
Heaven  knows  who  that  schools  which  do 
not  expose  h'm  to  that  possibility  lack. 
To  know  more  than  one  kind  of  boy  enlarges 
a  lad's  experience,  and  is  1'kely  to  do  him 
good.  As  a  rule,  school  friendships  are  less 
important  and  less  lasting  than  those  made 
a  little  later  in  life— in  college,  for  example, 
when  the  tastes  are  more  fully  formed,  and 
the  process  of  selection  of  which  friendship  is 
a  result  can  proceed  on  a  more  intelligent 
96 


Education 


basis.  School-boy  friendships  are  apt  to 
lapse,  unless  the  association  which  they 
spring  from  is  continued,  whereas  college 
friendships,  being  more  mature,  last  much 
better.  Willy  White's  loss,  therefore,  in 
missing  the  close  association  with  the  likely 
little  boys  that  one  always  fin  Is  at  Skid- 
more,  will  not  be  so  serious  as  his  mother 
thinks,  nor  will  Tommy  Green's  associations 
with  the  scions  of  solvent  houses  be  as  de 
moralizing  to  his  ideas  about  standards  of 
living  as  his  mother  fears.  A  good  school  is 
one  where  a  boy  has  a  good  chance  to  work 
out  what  is  in  him,  and  to  grow  up  under 
wise  supervision.  A  good  school  is  clean, 
and  its  atmosphere  is  clean.  Its  standard  of 
conduct  is  high ;  it  stimulates  industry  ; 
it  discourages  lies,  and,  in  so  far  as  possible, 
it  eliminates  viciousness.  It  schools,  but 
it  does  not  create.  It  takes  what  it  gets  and 
makes  what  it  can  of  it,  but,  after  all,  it  is 
the  raw  material  that  counts  most.  Even  a 
first-rate  school  does  not  make  first-rate  men 
out  of  second-rate  boys,  and  it  is  a  bad 
school  indeed  out  of  which  a  first-rate  boy 
does  not  get  advantage. 
G  97 


Lucid  Intervals 


As  for  colleges,  and  which  is  the  best,  and 
what  it  most  profits  a  lad  to  do  or  to  find  in 
Getting  on  in  colleges — those,  too,  are  ques- 
Coiiege  tions  which  assail  the  minds 
of  parents.  There  is  a  sort  of  success 
which  is  somewhat  vaguely  known  as 
"getting  on."  Some  men  of  only  ordinary 
capacity  "get  on/'  and  some  very  able 
men  don't.  To  get  on  is  doubtless  not  the 
highest  object  in  life,  but  in  its  way  it  is 
very  well  worth  while,  and  persons  who 
aspire  to  it,  as  most  people  do,  entertain  a 
purpose  which  is  entirely  law 
ful,  and,  under  proper  re 
straints,  is  praiseworthy.  As 


GETTING    ON    IN    COLLEGE 


9S 


Education 


it  is  in  the  great  world,  so  it  is  in  the  lesser 
world  of  college.  There  is  such  a  thing  as 
getting  on  in  college.  Most  lads  who  go  to 
college  are  desirous  of  getting  on  there,  and 
their  parents  and  friends  are  hopeful  that 
they  may. 

Of  course  in  a  big  modern  college  there 
are  very  many  ways  in  which  a  lad  may  do 
himself  credit  and  justify  the  cost  of  his 
education,  the  self-denial  it  rnay  involve 
in  his  elders,  and  his  own  expenditure  of 
time  and  effort.  High  credit  in  some  lines 
of  development  is  apt,  of  course,  to  conflict 
more  or  less  with  high  credit  in  others.  To 
be  all  things  to  all  men  is  sound  policy  if 
one  can  carry  it  out,  but  to  be  a  high  scholar, 
an  athlete  of  distinction,  and  a  social  favorite 
all  at  the  same  time  taxes  ordinary  human 
capacity,  though  it  is  true  that  all  things 
work  together  for  good  in  the  ma  who  goes 
about  his  business  in  the  right  spirit.  Exer 
cise  and  study  ought  to  go  well  together,  and 
both  should  help  to  maintain  that  balance 
of  the  faculties  which  goes  so  far  to  make 
a  man  agreeable.  To  get  on  in  college 
as  a  student  seems  plain  sailing  enough. 
99 


Lucid    Intervals 


Application,  self-discipline,  and  intelligence 
ought  to  achieve  it.  To  get  on  as  an  ath 
lete  is  simple,  too.  That  can  be  managed  if 
the  aspirant  has  an  aptitude  for  some  sport 
and  the  physical  qualifications  to  excel  in  it. 
The  rule  in  study  or  in  athletics  is  the  same. 
Go  to  work;  work  as  hard  and  as  intelli 
gently  and  as  systematically  as  you  can. 

But  how  is  it  with  that  other  sort  of  getting 
on,  in  which  the  signs  of  achievement  are 
merely  that  you  are  known,  that  your  fellows 
like  you,  that  your  society  is  valued,  that 
your  company  is  welcome,  and  that  you  are 
generally  held  in  good  esteem  by  other  men  ? 
To  get  on  socially,  whatever  may  be  said  in 
disparagement  of  it,  is  worth  while,  provided 
the  cost  of  it  is  not  too  high.  But  how  go 
about  it  ?  Does  this  sort  of  getting  on  de 
pend  on  work,  too  ?  In  a  sense  and  in  a 
measure  it  does,  for  what  we  are  and  what  we 
do  are  so  mixed  up  as  not  to  be  easily  dis 
tinguishable.  But  there  is  this  difference  : 
The  work  a  man  does  when  he  studies  hard 
or  when  he  pulls  weights  in  a  gymnasium  is 
deliberate,  and  he  is  perfectly  conscious  of  it ; 
but  the  most  effective  work  that  he  does 

100 


Education 


towards  gaining  popularity  is  more  or  less 
unconscious  and  instinctive.  He  may  make 
himself  known  by  the  work  of  his  brains 
and  his  muscles,  and  the  reputation  he 
makes  in  that  way  often  helps  him  socially, 
but  if  he  is  to  be  liked,  it  must  be  not  so  much 
for  what  he  can  do  as  for  what  he  is. 

The  way  to  be  liked  is  to  be  likable.  A 
new  graduate  of  a  big  college  who  had  got 
on  in  college  in  an  unusual  number  of  lines, 
and  had  belonged  to  many  different  kinds 
of  clubs,  and  had  been  a  person  of  influence 
in  his  college  day  and  generation,  was 
asked  this  very  question  as  to  what  makes 
a  man  acceptable  to  his  fellows.  His 
answer  was,  "  Common-sense."  It  is  prob 
ably  as  good  an  answer  as  could  have  been 
made.  Behavior  that  has  not  a  basis  of 
common-sense  back  of  it  is  always  liable 
to  slip  up.  Manners  may  in  considerable 
measure  be  learned,  and  in  some  colleges 
men  who  need  instruction  in  that  particular 
get  a  great  deal  of  it  that  is  valuable.  But 
back  of  all  manners  is  the  spirit  of  the  man 
who  wears  them.  If  the  spirit  is  what  it 
should  be,  defects  in  manners  should  mend 

IOI 


Liicid  Intervals 


themselves  as  a  result  of  observation.  But 
if  the  inner  spirit  is  amiss,  manners,  though 
traditionally  they  make  the  man,  will  never 
make  a  good  one. 

Don't  try  too  hard,  young  Freshman,  to  be 
popular  !  That  sort  of  effort  is  apt  to  be  a 
snare.  Popularity,  like  some  other  things, 
comes  largely  by  favor.  The  power  to  com 
mand  it  is  more  apt  to  be  a  gift  than  an  at 
tainment.  Charm  of  manner,  absence  of 
self-consciousness,  good  spirits,  wit,  grace, 
good  looks,  are  gifts  of  fairy  godmothers. 
They  are  pleasant  gifts,  but  not  essential 
either  to  happiness  or  high  success.  They 
command  certain  valuables,  but  the}^  also 
involve  certain  temptations  and  risks.  Don't 
strive  too  earnestly  after  those  things  which 
are  so  elusive  and  so  apt  to  be  unattainable 
to  effort ;  try1  for  the  substantial  goods, 
which  will  surely  help  to  make  you  good 
company  for  yourself,  and  are  almost  as 
sure  in  the  end  (whether  they  are  prompt 
or  slow  about  it)  to  win  you  other  men's  re 
gard.  Try  not  so  much  to  make  a  good 
appearance  as  to  be  a  good  man.  Mend 
your  manners  where  you  learn  to  see  they 

102 


Education 


need  it.  So  far  as  you  can  choose  your  com 
panions,  stick  to  those  whom  you  find  most 
surely  congenial  to  you.  If  your  taste  in 
company  changes  as  it  develops,  well  and 
good ;  your  natural  social  propensities  will 
regulate  that.  Your  affair  in  college,  as  it 
will  be  presently  in  the  world,  is  to  go  about 
your  business,  to  do  your  best  in  what  you 
undertake,  to  practise  what  you  know,  to 
learn  from  what  you  see  and  hear  and  read, 
and  to  be  just  as  upright  and  just  as  agree 
able  as  you  know  how. 

Your  business  in  college  is  to  learn. 
Whether  you  learn  from  books  or  from  men, 
or  from  both,  from  successes  or  mistakes, 
from  being  snubbed  or  favored,  from  being 
taken  into  societies  or  left  out  of  them,  it  is  all 
in  the  day's  work  so  long  as  what  you  learn 
is  worth  knowing  and  makes  you  sweeter, 
and  wiser,  and  abler,  and  more  patient,  and 
more  true.  You  must  have  self-respect; 
you  must  have  some  ideal  of  conduct  that  is 
your  own.  You  can't  get  on  by  imitating ; 
you  can't  buy  your  way,  though  money  has 
its  social  uses  everywhere.  You  can  keep 
fairly  clean,  and  that  will  help  you ;  you 
103 


Lucid  Intervals 


can  cultivate  modesty,  and  that  won't  harm 
you ;  and  for  the  rest  you  must  go  your  own 
gait  and  be  the  man  you  are,  and  let  fortune 
distribute  her  favors  according  to  her  some 
what  capricious  will. 


V 

RICHES 


V 

RICHES 

A  LITTLE  boy  who  lives  in  New  York  and 
finds  sport  somewhat  scarce  in  this  big  city, 
The  Sacred-  ^s  °ften  driven  by  the  dearth  of 
ness  of  other  excitements  to  take  walks 
Wea1th  abroad  in  the  streets.  The  oth 
er  day  he  took  his  father  with  him.  They 
walked  eastward  on  Fifty-ninth  Street  tow 
ards  the  quarter  most  affected  by  the  well- 
to-do,  and  reaching  Fifth  Avenue,  turned 
the  corner  and  drifted  down  that  thorough 
fare,  gazing  in  the  simplicity  of  country 
breeding  at  everything  that  seemed  worthy 
of  notice.  As  they  reached  the  second  corner 
the  father  stopped  and  looked  back  long  and 
inquisitively  at  the  great  house  with  which 
the  late  Mr.  Hunt  adorned  that  block.  Pres 
ently,  desiring  to  apprise  his  son  that  they 
107 


Lucid    Intervals 


were  considering  one  of  the  more  notable 
spectacles  of  the  town,  he  said,  "  Nicode- 
mus,  that  is  where  Mr.  Vanderbilt  lives." 

Not  wishing  to 
disturb  Mr.  Van- 
derbilt,  or  make 
him  suppose  some 
one  was  hailing 
him  from  the 
street,  he  spoke  in 
a  tone  somewhat 
subdued.  Nicode- 
mus  took  notice, 
but  said  nothing. 
A  week  later  he 
walked  abroad 
again,  this  time 
taking  both  his 
^__  parents,  and  fol 
lowed  the  same 
route.  His  mother, 
having  had  the  advantage  of  careful  train 
ing  in  early  life,  does  not  think  it  seemly  to 
observe  too  much — to  "gawk,"  as  she  would 
say — on  the  street,  but  still  she  takes  notice 
with  a  certain  demure  accuracy  as  she  goes 
1 08 


WHERE    MR.   VANDERBILT   LIVES 


Riches 


along,  and  as  they  passed  the  corner  of 
Fifty-eighth  Street  she  also  thought  proper 
to  observe  to  her  son,  in  a  modulated  tone, 
"  Nicodemus,  this  is  where  Mr.  Vanderbilt 
live  ."  Nicodemus  is  of  a  meditative  turn  of 
mind,  and  not  only  takes  notice,  but  reflects. 
For  a  moment  he  said  nothing,  but  presently, 
as  they  went  on,  he  exclaimed  :  "  Mother, 
why  is  it  that  when  you  pass  Mr.  Vander 
bilt  's  house  you  speak  of  it  with  such — with 
such  a  sort  of  sacredness  ?  Father  spoke  in 
just  the  same  way  last  Sunday  when  we 
came  here.  Who  is  Mr.  Vanderbilt,  mother, 
and  what  is  there  about  him  ?" 

Of  course  it  is  not  dutiful  for  a  little  boy  to 
suggest  openly  that  his  parents  are  snobs, 
but  neither  Nicodemus 's  mother  nor  his 
father  ventured  to  reprove  their  son.  They 
merely  smiled  a  somewhat  continuous  smile, 
and  explained  as  they  walked  along. 

The  attitude  of  conscientious  citizens  of 
limited  means  towards  their  affluent  brethren 
seems  to  abound  somewhat  overmuch  in  per 
plexities.  What  are  we  to  do  ?  The  poor 
we  have  always  with  us ;  but  nowadays  we 
have  the  rich,  too,  and  in  numbers  that 
109 


Lucid   Intervals 


dazzle  and  disturb.  If  we  are  to  have  either, 
we  would  rather  have  both.  We  are  fully 
sure  that  if  we  seized  the  property  of  the  rich 
and  gave  it  to  the  poor,  the  result  would  very 
soon  be  universal  poverty.  We  know  that 
when  we  interfere  unjustly  with  property 
rights  our  axe  goes  right  to  the  root  of  public 
prosperity.  We  admit  that  immense  accu 
mulations  of  wealth  in  individual  hands  are, 
in  some  respects,  an  evil;  but  we  suspect 
that  it  is  a  necessary  evil.  It  is  an  evil,  too, 
that  is  qualified  by  a  great  deal  of  good. 
Nature  wastes  nothing.  Her  opportunities 
for  using  things  are  too  great  for  anything  to 
miss  all  of  them.  So  it  seems  to  be  in  some 
degree  with  the  biggest  fortunes.  What  our 
rich  man  spends  emplo3^s  labor  somewhere. 
What  he  cannot  spend  becomes  capital  and 
employs  more  labor,  and  what  he  gives 
away  does  some  good — at  least  we  hope  so. 
Alas  for  Dives  !  whom  every  reformer 
wants  to  reform,  whom  every  Socialist  wants 
to  strip,  whom  every  Populist  wants  to  loot, 
whom  every  demagogue  wants  to  fatten  on, 
and  every  promoter  and  philanthropist  and 
college  president  and  trustee  of  school  or 
no 


Riches 


hospital  or  museum  to  "  interest. "  Alas  for 
him  !  There  was  an  Attila  who  was  a 
Scourge  and  a  Charles  who  was  a  Hammer. 
Our  Dives  is  neither,  but  a  far  milder  thing 
— a  Pocket.  Every  rascal  tries  to  dip  into 
him;  good  men  warn  him  that  he  should 
relax  his  strings ;  bad  men  threaten  to  rip 
him  up;  and  in  the  intervals  between  as 
saults  his  own  conscience  warns  him  that  he 
has  far  more  than  his  proper  share  of  this 
world's  goods.  He  is  not  happier  in  this 
world  than  most  of  us,  and  for  the  world  to 
come  the  Scripture  gives  him  only  slight  en 
couragement  to  hope  for  better  times. 

There  was  a  story  in  one  of  the  news 
papers  not  very  long  ago  about  a  very  rich 
A  Religious  man  who  addressed  a  Bible- 
Duty  class  of  boys  on  a  Saturday 
evening,  and  said  to  them,  among  other 
things  :  "  I  hope  you  young  men  are  all 
careful.  I  believe  it  is  a  religious  duty 
to  get  all  the  money  you  can;  get  it  fair 
ly,  religiously,  honestly,  and  give  away 
all  you  can."  The  man  who  spoke  had 
started  in  life  without  any  money,  and  as  the 
result  of  the  diligent  exercise  of  unusual 
in 


Lucid   Intervals 


business  abilities  had  come  to  be  one  of  the 
richest  men  in  the  world.  He  had  also 
given  much  money  away.  The  precepts 
that  he  uttered  seemed  to  be  such  as  he  had 
followed  himself.  He  seemed  to  have  made 
it  his  religious  duty  to  get  all  the  money  he 
could.  He  had  been  born  to  business  ability, 
and  had  developed  his  talent  mightily.  He 
had  practised  extreme  thrift  in  his  youth ; 
he  had  been  quick  to  see  and  seize  oppor 
tunity,  sagacious,  indomitable.  Little  by 
little  he  and  others  whom  he  had  associated 
with  himself  had  built  up  one  of  the  most 
marvellous  money-making  machines  ever 
known,  which,  crushing  out  rivalry  and 
competition,  presently  controlled  the  pro 
duction  and  sale  in  this  country  of  a  com 
modity  of  almost  universal  use.  Its  man 
agement  was  superlatively  able.  It  made 
great  fortunes  for  all  its  artificers,  and  still 
continues  to  pay  a  prodigious  annual  tribute 
to  its  owners. 

No  one  has  ever  questioned  that  it  is  good 
"  business  "  to  make  such  a  machine  as  this, 
but  there  is  novelty  in  the  idea  which  is  so 
readily  deduced  from  the  report  of  the  ad- 

112 


Riches 


dress  of  its  chief  promoter,  that  it  is  religion 
also.  When  we  Americans  talk  about  re 
ligion  we  usually  mean  Christianity,  and 
this  thought  of  a  great  and  ruthless  com 
mercial  engine  riding  down  all  opposition,  is 
curiously  in  conflict  with  the  notion  of 
Christianity  which  most  of  us  entertain. 
Our  religious  duty  involves  many  things 
which  are  of  high  value  in  money-making. 
It  involves  self-control,  temperance,  indus 
try,  a  reasonable  thrift,  and  a  reliance  for 
many  of  our  higher  gratifications  on  things 
that  are  not  material  and  which  are  not  to  be 
bought.  True  religion  does  not  blind,  it  en 
lightens  ;  it  does  not  impair  one's  sagacity, 
biit  merely  sets  it  to  work  on  a  higher  plane. 
A  sincerely  religious  man  may  become  a 
great  money-maker,  as,  luckily  for  all  com 
munities,  often  happens ;  but  still  it  seems  a 
good  deal  safer  to  regard  his  money-making 
as  something  concurrent  with  his  religious 
duty,  rather  than  the  realization  of  it.  The 
motives  for  money-getting  are  already  so 
powerful  and  so  obvious  that  they  appear 
rather  to  need  restraint  than  encouragement, 
and  it  seems  the  office  of  religion  rather  to 
H  113 


Lucid    Intervals 


limit  their  influence  than  to  commend  and 
endorse  it.  It  is  an  admirable  thing,  if  we  have 
the  gift  for  money-getting,  to  use  our  gains 
generously  and  wisely  for  the  benefit  of  our 
fellows,  but  we  are  faulty  and  greedy  creat 
ures  at  the  best,  prone  to  make  our  con 
sciences  and  our  moral  standards  submissive 
to  our  material  interests  ;  prone  to  take  an 
ell  where  duty  seems  to  warrant  us  in  taking 
an  inch.  If  we  make  it  our  religious  duty  to 
get  all  the  money  that  we  can  (honestly  of 
course),  that  we  may  have  the  more  to  give, 
shall  we  not  be  more  than  ever  in  danger  of 
being  careless  how  our  money  comes,  and 
whose  loss  is  involved  in  our  profit,  and  of 
cajoling  our  consciences  by  a  liberality 
made  possible  by  enterprises  in  the  develop 
ment  of  which  piety  and  human  kindness 
have  had  no  share  ? 

Man's  religious  duty  is  to  seek  righteous 
ness,  to  be  honest,  to  be  merciful,  to  be  just. 
It  is  his  privilege  to  gather  all  the  money 
he  can  without  sacrificing  his  higher  obli 
gations  as  a  creature  with  a  soul,  a  citizen, 
and  a  member  of  the  human  brotherhood. 
Whether  he  gains  more  money  or  less  is  of 
114 


Riches 


minor  consequence.  "  Seek  ye  first  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness/' 
said  the  Master,  "  and  all  these  things  shall 
be  added  unto  you."  Money  gains  appear 
there  as  the  incident,  not  the  aim  ;  and 
nothing  in  modem  experience  seems  to  im 
peach  the  wisdom  of  that  attitude  towards 
them. 

Lord  Rosebery  is  a  good  many  different 

kinds  of  a  man,  and  views  the  world  from 

Lord  Rose-  a  variety  of  standpoints.      His 

b e r y     on     chief  business  in  life  is  to  be  a 

Wealth  rich  English  earl  and  help  to 
govern  the  British  Empire.  But  it  is  not 
always  his  turn  at  the  wheel  of  state,  and 
when  he  is  not  governing  there  are  divers 
occupations  that  attract  him.  He  can  read, 
and  write,  and  race  horses,  and  make  very 
acceptable  speeches  on  public  occasions. 
He  is  in  sympathy  with  literature  and  the 
makers  of  it.  The  Scotch  respect  him  for 
his  scholarship  and  like  him,  as  every  one 
seems  to  who  knows  him,  because  he  is 
intelligent,  prosperous,  and  very  likable. 
Being  known  as  one  of  the  ablest,  best- 
trained,  and  best-tempered  men  in  England, 


Lucid  Intervals 


and  a  man  of  fine  character  as  well  as  of 
large  fortune,  he  is,  to  all  appearances,  as 
enviable  a  person  in  mind,  estate,  and  oppor 
tunity  as  one  can  readily  think  of. 

The  English  newspapers  were  scoffing  at 
him  a  while  ago  because  in  the  course  of  a 
speech  that  he  made  at  the  opening  of  a 
hospital  he  spoke  on  "  the  exaggerated 
advantages  of  wealth,"  pointing  out  the  fa 
miliar  truths  that  even  millionaires  cannot 
eat  more  than  their  appetites  warrant,  or 
wear  more  than  one  suit  of  clothes,  or  ride 
more  than  one  horse  at  a  time.  The  chief 
advantage  they  had  over  poorer  people,  he 
thought,  was  in  being  able  to  command  a 
change  of  climate  when  they  felt  like  it,  and 
the  best  of  medical  advice.  And  this  latter 
advantage,  he  thought,  was  being  brought 
every  year  more  and  more  within  reach  of 
every  one  by  the  multiplication  of  hospitals. 

All  that  he  said  was  true  enough,  but  the 
scribes  of  the  contemporary  press  have  been 
laughing  at  him  for  saying  it,  and  accusing 
him  of  talking  cant.  The  truth  is  that 
though  he  did  not  talk  cant,  he  helped  him 
self  to  a  topic  which  is  reserved  to  the  uses 
116 


Riches 


of  the  philosophical  poor.  Since  ink  began 
to  flow  it  has  been  the  perennial  consolation 
of  philosophers  who  had  leisure  for  medita 
tion  to  point  out  that,  after  all,  there  was  a 
limit  to  what  money  could  buy,  and  that  to 
have  prodigious  accumulations  of  dross  was 
by  no  means  so  vast  an  advantage  as  the  in 
considerate  supposed.  The  reiteration  of 
this  sentiment  in  the  last  five  thousand 
years  is  astonishing — or  would  be  if  we  did 
not  recall  how  constant  has  been  humanity's 
appreciation  of  "means,"  and  how  unflag 
ging  its  effort  to  attain  them.  Horace,  who 
lived  in  an  era  of  great  fortunes  and  corre 
sponding  luxury,  seems  to  have  divided 
his  time  pretty  equally  in  having  what  fun 
he  could  with  the  funds  at  his  disposal,  and 
declaring,  in  marketable  verse,  that  he  could 
not  have  materially  more  fun  even  though 
he  was  considerably  richer.  It  was  doubt 
less  true ;  for  Horace,  like  Rosebery,  had  an 
acute  and  cultivated  mind,  from  the  work 
ings  of  which  he  doubtless  derived  more 
entertainment  than  he  could  ever  have  got 
from  the  mere  increase  of  his  material  pos 
sessions.  He  had  enough  and  realized  it. 
117 


Lucid    Intervals 


Mr.  Carnegie  has  been  lately  quoted  as 
saying  that  in  his  opinion  "  the  secret  of 
money-making  depends  chiefly  on  push, 
'  squareness, '  clear  -  headedness,  economy, 
and  rigid  adherence  to  the  rule  of  not  over 
working.  "  That  is  to  say  that  with  energy, 
honesty,  intelligence,  thrift,  and  rest  a  man 
ought  to  be  able  to  get  rich.  To  be  sure; 
but  while  it  is  a  well-endowed  man  who  can 
bring  all  these  elements  to  bear  in  due  meas 
ure  in  his  business,  Mr.  Carnegie  has  left 
out  one  element  which  is  at  least  as  impor 
tant  as  any  of  the  others,  for  back  of  most 
fortunes  one  finds  a  strong  desire  to  be  rich, 
and  that  all  persons  do  not  have  in  any 
thing  like  the  same  degree.  Almost  every 
intelligent  person  wants  to  keep  what  he  has 
got — his  income,  his  place  in  the  world — 
and  will  try  hard,  and  even  make  sacrifices, 
to  do  so.  But  either  because  it  is  so  obvi 
ously  true  that,  as  Lord  Rosebery  says,  the 
advantages  of  great  wealth  are  exaggerated, 
or  because  a  moderate  income  can  make  a 
moderate  person  very  comfortable,  or  be 
cause  use  tends  to  make  any  tolerable  lot 
agreeable,  or  because  our  aspirations  wait 
118 


Riches 


on  our  abilities,  it  is  true  that  the  strong  im 
pulse  to  gain  a  great  fortune  is  not  common, 
and  that  envy  of  the  possessors  of  great  fort 
unes  is  rather  rare.  Because  almost  every 
one  wants  a  little  more  money,  and  because 
a  majority  of  the  people  about  us  are  trying 
hard  to  get  more  money,  we  are  apt  to  think 
that  the  pursuit  of  wealth  is  really  the  most 
engrossing  of  human  interests,  and  that 
every  one  who  disparages  the  value  of  money- 
talks  cant.  But  we  are  liable  to  deceive  our 
selves  about  that.  The  people  about  us  are 
busy  not  so  much  in  trying  to  make  money 
as  in  living  their  several  lives.  To  have  the 
use  of  some  money  is  a  pretty  necessary  inci 
dent  to  living  with  satisfaction,  but  getting 
the  money  is,  after  all,  to  most  persons,  a  pur 
suit  of  a  means,  not  an  end  in  itself.  With 
out  intending  violence  to  the  catechism,  one 
may  say  that  the  chief  end  of  life  is  living. 
Certainly  it  is  not,  for  most  of  us,  the  heaping 
together  of  more  money  than  a  decent  regard 
for  old  age  and  posterity  shames  us  into 
hoarding.  We  go  about  our  tasks,  take 
pleasure  and  pride  in  them,  are  solicitous 
that  they  shall  reward  us  duly,  and  are 
119 


Lucid   Intervals 


greatly  put  out  if  they  don't,  but  great 
riches  we  average  people  don't  think  of  as 
possible  for  ourselves,  nor  give  ourselves 
concern  about  attaining  them.  If  they 
were  offered  to  us  at  the  price  of  changing 
our  pursuits,  abandoning  our  interests  for 
new  ones,  going  among  new  people,  and 
guiding  our  thoughts  into  new  and  un 
sympathetic  channels,  many  of  us  would  be 
loath  to  accept  them.  The  truth  is  that 
most  of  us  are  strongly  attached  to  ourselves 
and  our  belongings,  and  want  to  keep  on 
being  ourselves  and  belonging  to  our  own 
until  the  end  of  the  chapter.  We  want  to  de 
velop  and  to  succeed,  and  if  riches  knock  at 
our  door  we  will  not  shoot  the  bolt,  but  not  for 
the  sake  of  being  rich  would  many  of  us  pay 
a  price  which  changed  or  confused  our 
identity.  The  man  who  has  the  money- 
making  instinct,  and  who  begins  young  to 
realize  it,  and  who  never  has  any  ambition 
with  which  money  -  hunting  conflicts,  has 
nothing  to  lose  and  everything  to  gain  by 
first  scraping  and  then  heaping  until  the 
mass  of  his  accumulations  satisfies  him. 
Life's  turbid  current  eats  little  fortunes 
120 


Riches 


away,  so  that  they  need  to  be  constantly 
replenished,  but  the  big  ones  nowadays 
seem  to  check  the  stream,  so  that  they  gain 
more  in  detritus  than  they  lose  by  erosion. 
Most  of  us  have  no  expectation  to  be  aught 
but  replenishes  all  our  lives,  and  we  are 
happy  if,  our  daily  efforts  being  blessed,  we 
are  able  to  keep  our  heads  safely  above  the 
flood. 

No  other  fault  can  be  found  with  Lord 
Rosebery's  discourse  than  that  in  moraliz 
ing  on  the  limitations  of  riches  he  has  tres 
passed  upon  the  privilege  of  the  poor.  It  is 
his  office,  as  a  rich  man,  to  buckle  to  and 
make  life  picturesque,  to  have  heaps  of  toys, 
and  put  in  due  part  of  his  time  in  playing 
with  them.  It  is  not  for  him  to  say  that 
money  brings  few  advantages,  but  to  try 
conscientiously  to  display  all  the  advan 
tages  it  affords.  It  is  our  privilege  to  tell 
him  that  however  many  pockets  a  man 
may  have,  he  has  but  one  liver;  that  life  is 
too  short  to  spend  much  of  it  going  from 
anywhere  to  nowhere  in  particular  on  a 
yacht;  that  horse-racing  has  immoral  asso 
ciations  ;  that  champagne  more  than  twice 

121 


Lucid    Intervals 


a  week  is  not  healthy  ;  that  cigars  are  dan 
gerous  in  proportion  to  their  cost;  that  it 
is  a  bore  to  have  more  than  five  servants  or 
more  than  two  horses,  and  that  the  respon 
sibilities,  temptations,  and  conspicuousness 
of  great  wealth  go  far  to  help  us  towards 
the  conclusion  that  it  may  be  dear  at  its 
price. 

Many  of  us  have  views  as  to  the  uses  that 
our  richer  brethren  should  find  for  their  sur 
pluses,  but  they  are  not  very  apt  to  regard 
our  opinions.  A  tender-hearted  little  girl 
was  listening  to  the  story  of  an  educated  pig 
who  escaped  from  a  circus,  and  fared  forth 
alone  into  the  wide  world.  As  he  went  on 
through  the  fields  and  began  to  get  hungry, 
he  came  to  a  tree  covered  with  green  plums. 
He  wanted  the  plums.  He  looked  up  at 
them  with  growing  eagerness.  He  rubbed 
against  the  tree,  and  tried  to  shake  them 
down,  but  they  were  too  green,  and  would 
not  drop.  Then  he  stood  on  his  hind  legs, 
and  tried  to  reach  those  on  the  lower 
branches,  but—"  Oh,  mother  !"  cried  the 
little  girl,  "  that's  going  to  be  a  sad  story ! 
Please  don't  read  any  more  !" 

122 


Riches 


It  is  somewhat  so  with  a  dissertation,  in  a 
coritemporarjr  magazine,  on  the  "  Expendi 
ture  of  the  Rich."  The  author  thinks  that 
extremely  rich  people  had  better  give  over 
the  practice  of  building  immense  country 
houses,  and  invest  some  of  their  surpluses 
in  public  monuments  instead.  It  seems  a 
wise  suggestion,  but,  after  all,  the  plums  are 
too  green  still  to  be  shaken  down,  and  the 
ending  of  the  story  is  all  too  Lkely  to  be 
sad.  The  very  rich  seldom  invest  their 
spare  monej^  according  to  the  suggestions 
of  philosophers.  They  spend  what  they  can 
on  their  own  pleasures  and  comfort,  give  to 
what  happens  to  interest  them,  and  let  the 
rest  accumulate.  It  seems  possible  that 
what  they  save  does  at  least  as  much  good 
as  what  they  spend  or  give,  for  that  becomes 
capital,  and  capital  accumulating  in  vast 
sums  makes  money  cheap,  quickens  enter 
prise,  develops  the  resources  of  the  country, 
and  takes  bad  bargains  off  of  the  hands  of  the 
poor.  One  of  the  great  uses  we  have  for  the 
very  rich  is  to  acquire  and  carry  properties 
which  poor  people  cannot  afford  to  hold.  To 
be  sure  the  rich  only  buy  bad  bargains  at 
123 


Lucid    Intervals 


the  market  rates,  and  at  that  rate  they  are 
apt  to  be  fairly  good  bargains ;  but  the 
scarcer  the  rich  are,  and  the  more  moderate 
their  accumulations,  the  lower  the  market 
rates  for  bad  bargains  must  be,  and  the 
worse  the  sacrifice  for  people  who  have  to 
sell.  There  is  not  nearly  as  much  occasion 
to  worry  about  the  surplus  income  that  very 
rich  people  do  not  spend  as  most  of  us  sup 
pose.  If  it  is  spent  it  may  be  misspent,  but 
if  it  accumulates  in  banks  and  trust  com 
panies,  it  becomes  part  of  the  capital  of  the 
country,  and  goes  where  it  is  needed. 

It  attests  the  benevolence  of  our  disposi 
tions  that  we  don't  at  all  like  to  see  rich 
men  who  have  been  anyway  decent  in  their 
walk  and  conversation  come  to  pecuniary 
grief.  We  are  instinctively  conservative, 
and  are  better  content  to  have  big  fortunes 
adhere  to  the  original  winners  of  them  than 
be  looted  by  predatory  outsiders.  In  the 
fight  between  the  lion  and  the  wolves  we  are 
usually  for  the  lion ;  and  when  he  is  a  very 
aged  lion,  and  toothless,  the  case  appeals 
to  us  all  the  more.  It  changes  things  to 
have  the  poor  get  very  rich  or  the  rich  get 
124 


Riches 


very  poor.  We  can  stand  the  former  change 
better  than  the  latter ;  but,  as  a  rule,  we  are 
not  particularly  pleased  with  either.  Only 
the  other  day  a  lady  living  in  circumstances 
by  no  means  destitute  complained  that  two 
friends  with  whom  her  associations  had 
been  somewhat  close  had  bloomed  suddenly 
out  into  a  displeasing  affluence,  whereof  the 
outward  marks  were  broughams  with  two 
men  on  the  box,  raiment  of  discouraging 
richness  and  variety,  and  all  such  discon 
certing  vanities.  She  deplored  the  changes 
in  these  acquaintances.  She  had  liked 
them  better  as  they  were,  and  found  them 
more  soothing  associates.  She  was  war 
ranted  in  regretting  their  pecuniary  en 
largement,  in  so  far  as  it  concerned  her 
self,  for  it  is  unquestionably  inconvenient 
for  the  moderately  endowed  to  have  their 
friends  get  too  rich.  As  they  climb  they 
carry  the  standard  of  living  up  with  them, 
and  gradually  drawing  away  from  simple 
habits,  emerge  presently  into  that  table 
land  of  luxury  where  the  nomadic  dwellers 
bring  home  malaria  and  typhoid  from  the 
most  remote  and  expensive  hotels,  and  can 
I2S 


Lucid   Intervals 


afford  to  have  their  appendixes  removed 
when  they  have  the  stomach-ache.  Oh, 
the  sorrows,  the  weariness,  and  the  diseases 
of  the  people  who  can  afford  not  to  stay  at 
home  !  The  money  may  be  worth  its 
penalties ;  it  is  worth  a  good  deal ;  but 
though  we  might  endure  to  be  rich  ourselves, 
it  is  really  a  sound  discretion  in  us  which 
makes  us  prefer  that  the  capacity  of  our 
friends  to  bear  the  pricks  and  dare  the  haz 
ards  of  opulence  should  not  be  too  generally 
tested. 

But  in  spite  of  all  the  drawbacks  to  riches 
the  progress  from  poverty  to  affluence  is 
Silver  Lin-  rated  agreeable,  and  that  from 
inss  affluence  to  poverty  the  reverse. 
Being  rich  is  very  apt  to  spoil  us  for  ever 
being  poor  again.  We  develop  wants, 
and  they  usually  make  slaves  of  us.  Still, 
to  the  true  philosopher  there  may  be  some 
music  in  the  swish  of  the  wings  of  Fort 
une  as  she  flies  away.  There  may  be 
compensations  even  in  financial  reverses, 
for  the  pleasures  and  the  employments  of 
opulence  do  not  suit  all  tastes.  I  forget 
what  it  was  that  swamped  Fessenden — 
126 


Riches 


whether  it  was  cordage,  or  Reading,  or 
Northern  Pacific,  or  Western  land  com 
panies,  or  mines,  or  just  the  universal 
sagging  that  followed  '93  and  hung  on  so 
long.  For  a  time  he  had 
hopes  and  struggled,  but  in 
'95  the  masts  finally  went 
over  the  side  of  his  fiscal 
bark,  and,  thankful  that  the 
hull  was  still  tight,  he  cut 
loose  from  his  wreckage 
and  began  to  devise  new 
means  of  reaching  port. 
When  I  sighted  him  one 
day  I  looked  for  distress 
signals,  but  there  were 
none.  He  was  cheerful,  if 
not  absolutely  complacent. 
"Fessenden,"  said  I,  "how 
goes  it?  I  hear  you  are  a 
victim  of  prevailing  circumstances  and  are 
reduced  to  all  but  an  absurdity.  Are  you 
bearing  up,  dear  man  ?  Is  there  still  fun 
in  the  world,  and  do  you  get  any  of  it  ?" 

Fessenden  laughed — actually  laughed — 
arid  not  a  forced  laugh  either,  for  his  eyes 
127 


FESSENDEN 


Lucid   Intervals 


twinkled.  "  Praise  the  Lord,"  he  said,  "  I 
do  bear  up,  and  I  do  have  fun.  There  are 
so  many  things  that  I  don't  have  to  do,  and 
I  have  so  much  more  spare  time  and  energy 
for  my  legitimate  labors,  that  I  begin  to  fear 
that  I  may  die  a  rich  man  yet.  You  don't 
know  what  relief  it  brings  to  a  person  not 
naturally  laborious  to  be  absolved  from 
fealty  to  sport  and  from  the  obligation  to 
keep  one's  self  exercised  and  amused.  I  used 
to  belong  to  at  least  a  dozen  clubs — polo 
clubs,  golf  clubs,  yachting  clubs,  racket 
and  court  tennis  clubs,  athletic  clubs,  lunch 
clubs,  and  clubs  for  social  relaxation.  I 
resigned  from  four-fifths  of  them,  thereby 
accomplishing  a  pleasing  retrenchment  in 
the  mere  matter  of  annual  dues.  I  have 
always  hated  to  waste  anything,  and  I  used 
to  try  to  get  some  little  service  every  year 
out  of  each  club  I  joined.  I  hunted  a  little, 
I  golfed  a  good  deal,  I  had  some  polo  ponies 
and  worked  them  occasionally.  I  never  had 
a  yacht,  but  still  I  yachted  somewhat  in 
the  season.  I  did  a  little  of  everything  in 
its  season,  and  I  made  it  a  point  to  take 
as  much  social  relaxation  as  my  system 
128 


Ricbes 


could  stand  between  other  employments.  Of 
course  the  strain  was  considerable,  and 
what  I  tried  to  do  in  the  way  of  business 
was  sometimes  skimped.  I  made  some  in 
vestments  that  I  would  not  have  made  if  my 
engagements  had  permitted  me  to  go  to  the 
bottom  of  them.  I  was  a  very  hard-worked 
man,  so  much  so  that  I  found  it  difficult  to 
maintain  much  more  than  a  bowing  ac 
quaintance  with  my  family.  A  friendship 
of  long  standing  with  my  wife  I  was  able 
to  keep  up,  but  anything  like  an  intimacy 
with  my  children  was  impossible.  The  re 
lief  which  emancipation  has  brought  has 
astonished  me.  I  have  no  horses  now,  no 
polo  ponies,  no  grooms  or  equestrian  help 
ers.  Sometimes  I  ride  a  bicycle  a  little  way, 
but  I  feel  no  obligation  to  keep  it  exercised. 
Sometimes  I  play  a  round  of  golf,  but  mere 
ly  for  amusement.  I  don't  turn  my  hand 
over  to  keep  '  in  condition/  my  riding  weight 
isn't  a  matter  of  concern  to  me,  I  walk 
enough  to  keep  my  nerves  quiet  and  my 
digestion  in  order,  and  I  find  steady  enter 
tainment,  which  borders  sometimes  on  act 
ual  excitement,  in  the  old-fashioned  game 
i  129 


Lucid    Intervals 


of  trying  to  make  a  living.  Really,  it's  a 
better  game  than  it's  cracked  up  to  be.  To 
chase  a  dollar  is  more  humane  than  to  chase 
a  fox,  and  for  all  that  the  fox  is  harder  to 
catch  the  dollar  can  make  sharp  turns 
sometimes  and  afford  a  really  zealous  pur 
suer  some  very  fair  sport.  I  honest^  think 
that  in  time  I  may  come  to  be  fairly  good 
at  it,  and  I  shall  have  time  to  perfect  my 
self,  too.  The  new  life  is  so  easy  compared 
with  the  old.  One's  habits  are  so  much 
more  regular;  the  blandishments  of  do 
mestic  life  and  the  society  of  children  are 
so  wholesome;  it  saves  one's  strength  so 
to  sit  for  a  while  in  an  office.  I  was  wear 
ing  my  poor  old  apparatus  out,  and  now, 
at  the  easy  rate  I  am  going,  I  ought  to  live 
to  be  eighty." 

In    marked,  but   cheerful,  contrast   with 

the  case  of  Fessenden,  rejoicing  in  timely 

Major  Brace's   deprivations,  is  the  predicament 

Embarrass-     of  my  old  friend  Major  Brace, 

who    is    willing    to    renounce, 

but  lacks  the  means.     He  has  been  telling 

me  that   the  rector  of    the  church  which 

he  goes  to,  observing  the  sedateness  of  his 

130 


Riches 


walk  and  the  salubriousness  of  his  con 
versation,  has  called  his  attention  to  the 
expediency  of  becoming  a  somewhat  more 
formal  pillar  of  the  temple  by  making  pub 
lic  attestation  of  his  connection  with  it. 
The  major,  being  in  decided  sympathy  with 
the  purposes  of  the  church,  has  been  look 
ing  into  the  matter.  He  finds  it  requisite, 
among  other  things,  if  he  joins  the  church, 
to  take  upon  his  own  shoulders  all  the  re 
sponsibilities  assumed  on  his  account  by  his 
sponsors  in  baptism.  He  says  his  sponsors 
agreed  on  his  account  to  renounce  the  devil 
and  all  his  works,  the  vain  pomp  and  glory 
of  the  world,  and  other  matters  which  the 
prayer-book  specifies.  He  has  no  kindness, 
he  says,  for  the  devil,  and  no  desire  to  retain 
the  usufruct  of  any  of  his  works,  but  "  the 
vain  pomp  and  glory  of  the  wrorld  "  has 
given  him  some  slight  pause,  because  of 
a  difficulty  in  determining  precisely  what 
specifications  these  somewhat  loose  descrip 
tive  terms  include.  ' 

If  "  vain  pomp  and  glory  "  means  plumes 
on  a  hearse,  he  will  cheerfully  forego  them. 
If  it  means  the  privilege  of  having  his  por- 


Lucid   Intervals 


trait  in  the  newspapers,  he  will  not  cleave 
to  that.  He  is  quite  willing  to  give  up,  so 
far  as  lies  in  him,  all  purpose  and  expecta 
tion  of  marrying  either  of  his  daughters  to 
any  member  of  the  British  peerage,  all  un 
christian  joy  over  our  country's  expansion 
into  the  Pacific,  all  pride  in  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  beyond  what  loyalty  de 
mands,  and  all  hope  of  having  either  of  his 
sons  on  the  football  team  of  any  prominent 
university.  Further  than  that  he  does  not 
quite  know  how  to  go,  and  yet  these  renun 
ciations  somehow  seem  trivial  to  him  when 
footed  up  and  balanced  against  the  sonor 
ous  interrogation  of  the  church. 

"  Where  shall  I  get  any  vain  pomp  ?"  the 
major  demands.  "  Do  you  really  think  it 
grows  in  this  country,  or  that  a  republican 
form  of  government  is  consistent  with  it  ? 
I  own  I  am  often  proud  of  Mrs.  Brace's 
clothes,  and  her  glorious  and  majestic  ap 
pearance  in  them  when  they  are  new.  I 
even  take  a  pleasure  in  that  brilliant  aggre 
gation  of  jewels  which  is  known  in  our  fam 
ily  as  'The  Constellation/  and  which  she 
often  wears  of  an  evening  with  admirable 
132 


Riches 


effect.  '  The  Constellation  '  may  be  a  vain 
pomp,  but  it  is  not  mine.  Mrs.  Brace  must 
settle  about  it  herself.  I  might  renounce 
the  yellow  shoes  I  bought  last  year,  and 
which  I  own  I  did  not  like  the  less  for  being 
ostentatious,  but  their  day  is  so  far  advanced 
that  they  are  pomps  no  longer.  I  confess 
that  I  am  somewhat  disconcerted.  I  could 
renounce  the  devil,  though  really  he  is  al 
most  as  vague  an  entity  to  me  as  the  am 
biguous  '  Mrs.  Astor/  But  I  shall  have  to 
take  further  counsel  with  the  rector  about 
the  pomps  and  vanities.  Perhaps  he  will 
understand  them  in  some  sense  which  will 
make  them  seem  tangible  enough  to  let  go, 
but,  unless  he  does,  it  puzzles  me  to  know 
how  I  am  to  give  them  up  without  blushing 
before  all  the  congregation." 


VI 
SOME    HUMAN    CRAVINGS 


VI 
SOME    HUMAN    CRAVINGS 

SOMETIMES  it  seems,  as  we  contemplate 
American  politics,  as  if  the  true  inwardness 

Authority  of  authority  had  been  at  last 
discovered,  and  that  the  people  of  the  most 
intelligence,  appreciating  that  it  was  more 
trouble  than  it  was  worth,  had  stopped 
striving  after  it.  It  has  seemed  as  if 
the  American  men  who  were  best  qualified 
by  energy  and  intelligence  to  get  what 
they  want  in  this  world  did  not,  as  a  rule, 
care  to  govern  the  country  or  any  part 
of  it.  These  many  years,  too,  many  of 
them  have  seemed  disposed  to  let  some  one 
else  do  the  governing,  as  well  as  the 
ploughing  and  cooking,  at  their  expense. 
Still,  that  may  not  be  because  they  have 
undervalued  authority,  for  they  may  have 
137 


Lucid  Intervals 


reasoned  that  office  is  only  the  shadow 
of  power,  whereas  the  real  thing  is  dollars 
in  the  bank,  and  so  have  lent  themselves 
to  the  accumulation  of  dollars.  Heaven 
forbid  that  any  one  should  extenuate  the 
misconduct  of  persons  who  give  themselves 
over  to  money-getting  or  money-spending 
when  they  ought  to  be  bending  their  ener 
gies  to  the  acquisition  of  duties  and  the 
exercise  of  political  power.  It  is  fair  to 
say,  though,  that  in  our  day  there  are  more 

wajrs  of  having 
fun  than  there 
used  to  be,  espe 
cially  when  dol- 

"AUTHORITY"  j^       ^       ^^ 

available,  and  that  being  the  servant  of  the 
people  is  not  so  distinctly  the  leading  pas 
time  as  it  was.  When  the  Black  Prince 
took  Ich  dien  for  his  motto  and  went  about 
breaking  heads  the  motto  represented  a 
theory  which  sat  with  noble  grace  on  a 
gallant  gentleman  with  a  high  capacity  for 
making  himself  respected.  Our  contempo 
rary  congressman,  who  spends  laborious 
evenings  tying  up  packets  of  seeds  to  send 
138 


Some  Human   Cravings 

to  his  constituents,  may  feel  that  what  once 
was  a  wholesome  theory  has  come  to  be  al 
most  too  inevitably  a  condition. 

Like  begets  like.  Persecution  begets 
persecution;  tyranny  is  apt  to  beget  a  de 
sire  to  tyrannize  in  turn.  To  people  under 
close  supervision  the  privilege  of  exercising 
authority  seems  a  high  prize  to  be  longed 
for  and  striven  after.  To  people  who  are 
used  to  take  care  of  themselves  without 
much  supervision  the  task  of  managing 
other  folks'  concerns  is  much  less  attractive, 
and  presents  objections  which  have  to  be 
overcome  either  by  a  sense  of  duty  or  due 
prospects  of  remuneration. 

We  have  seen  how  very  moderate  is  the 
desire  of  our  people  to  dominate  the  Cubans, 
and  with  what  critical  reluctance  the  aver 
age  American  contemplates  the  proposal 
to  assume  responsibility  for  the  future  wel 
fare  of  the  Philippines.  One  reason  for  it 
may  be  that  we  Americans  of  this  genera 
tion  have  never  been  bossed  enough  to  make 
authority  attractive  to  us  for  its  own  sake. 
We  like  offices  very  well  if  they  have  larger 
salaries  than  we  can  earn  elsewhere,  but  the 


Lucid  Intervals 


power  we  are  greedy  for  is  not  the  power  to 
regulate  the  conduct  of  others,  but  to  do  as 
we  please  ourselves. 

That  is  one  reason  why  dollars  are  more 
attractive  to  many  of  the  ablest  of  us  than 
political  office.  Dollars  in  fair  store  en 
large  personal  liberty.  They  relieve  their 
possessor  of  the  need  of  earning  wages, 
and  give  him  what  is,  after  all,  the  most 
precious  authority  there  is — the  privilege 
of  spending  his  own  time  according  to  his 
own  preferences.  That  estate  which  we 
characterize  as  "  independent  means "  is 
unquestionably  one  of  high  advantage 
and  opportunity.  If  we  aspired  to  it  less 
ardently  and  generally  than  we  do,  we 
should  be  duller  people  than  we  are,  but  not 
necessarily  better. 

Some  degree  of  control  over  others  is  usu 
ally  an  incident  of  accumulated  dollars,  for 
pretty  much  all  the  available  authority 
which  is  not  temporarily  delegated  to  officers 
of  government  is  divided  among  two  classes 
of  citizens — those  who  are  willing  to  work 
and  those  who  are  able  to  pay.  Most  rich 
people,  except  those  who  are  shut  up  in  in- 
140 


Some  H inn  a  11    Cravings 

vstitutions,  exercise  more  or  less  authority. 
Their  orders  are  carried  out  because  obe 
dience  to  them  is  rewarded.  Servants  do 
their  bidding,  shop-keepers  pay  them  at 
tention;  and,  besides  those  whose  consid 
eration  of  their  wishes  secures  direct  recog 
nition  in  money,  many  others  of  us  defer 
to  them  out  of  our  instinctive  appreciation 
of  the  propriety  of  the  Bible  rule  that  to 
him  who  hath  shall  be  given.  But  rich 
people  are  just  as  different  in  their  appetite 
for  authority  as  the  rest  of  us.  To  some 
of  them  it  simply  means  work,  and  the 
more  of  it  they  can  escape  the  better  life 
suits  them.  To  pay  for  having  necessary 
drudgery  done,  and  not  to  be  bothered  in 
the  doing  of  it,  is  their  idea  of  comfort,  and 
it  is  an  idea  which  has  good  points  about 
it,  for  there  are  other  remunerative  occupa 
tions  in  the  world  besides  being  boss.  Some 
of  them  carry  it  too  far.  One  of  the  faults 
critics  find  with  American  rich  people  is 
that  not  being  fully  used  to  their  own  con 
dition  they  find  difficulty  in  sharing  its 
burdens,  and  out  of  mere  dislike  of  holding 
the  reins  over  subordinates  do  a  great  many 
141 


Lucid  Intervals 


things  for  themselves  which  might  advan 
tageously  be  done  for  them,  foregoing  much, 
in  consequence,  that  it  would  be  pleasant 
to  have,  or  else  fretting  their  minds  with 
so  many  trivialities  that  they  have  not  en 
ergy  enough  left  to  profit  duly  by  the  ad 
vantages  of  large  means. 

It  is  in  the  hands  of  the  other  class  men 
tioned — the  class  that  is  willing  to  work — 
that  by  far  the  greater  share  of  authority 
in  our  country — as  doubtless  in  most  other 
countries — is  lodged.  From  that  class  is 
recruited  all  railroad  presidents  and  heads 
of  great  corporations,  all  superintendents 
of  Sunday-schools,  managers  of  charities, 
managers  of  fairs,  politicians,  successful 
men  of  business,  street -car  conductors, 
leaders  of  society,  committee-men  in  clubs, 
and  editors  of  newspapers.  Once  in  a 
while  the  exigencies  of  an  unusual  situa 
tion  forces  authority  into  the  hands  of  some 
indifferent  person  who  does  not  want  to  be 
bothered  with  it,  but  who  is  known  to  be 
competent  to  wield  it.  But,  as  a  general 
rule,  it  goes  to  those  who  have  a  taste  for 
it  and  reach  out  after  it.  It  is  not  apt  to 
142 


Some  Human   Cravings 

invade  the  privacy  of  minds  bent  on  re 
tirement.  This  we  may  notice,  however, 
that  authority  once  assumed,  though  re 
luctantly,  is  apt  to  be  retained  as  long  as 
possible.  There  is  a  charm  about  giving 
the  word  of  command,  about  seeing  one's 
purposes  realized,  about  discovering  future 
events  by  personal  meditation  instead  of 
inquiry.  To  know  that  there  will  be  buck 
wheat  cakes  for  breakfast  because  one  in 
tends  to  order  them  is  a  condition  that  is 
on  divers  accounts  superior  in  its  satisfac 
tions  to  that  of  possessing  the  same  knowl 
edge  by  hearsay.  To  be  the  implement  of 
destiny  had  its  attractions  for  lofty  minds 
long  before  the  acquisition  of  the  Philippines 
began  to  puzzle  students  of  the  American 
Constitution. 

It  is  this  subtle  attractiveness  about  the 
condition  of  being  boss — troublesome  as 
that  condition  is — that  makes  liberty-lov 
ing  persons  always  jealous  of  it.  The  step 
from  the  point  of  view  which  makes  it  seem 
an  obligation  to  rule  to  that  which  results 
in  the  assumption  of  a  right  to  rule  is  easily 
taken,  and  with  difficulty  retraced.  As  it 


Lucid    Intervals 


is  a  good  general  rule  to  hold  on  to  all  the 
lawful  authority  that  one  has  been  intrust 
ed  with  until  there  is  excellent  reason  for 
letting  go,  so  also  it  is  usually  expedient 
to  contest  the  beginnings  of  unauthorized 
control.  To  rule  one's  self  and  manage 
one's  own  affairs,  provided  one  does  not 
make  too  bad  a  job  of  it,  is  more  satisfactory 
and  better  for  an  adult  person,  or  an  adult 
people,  than  to  be  ruled  by  others.  But  in 
so  far  as  one  must  be  ruled,  it  is  a  precious 
boon  to  be  ruled  by  a  qualified  person  who 
knows  the  business,  knows  his  own  mind, 
can  distinguish  between  essentials  and  non- 
essentials,  is  intelligent  enough  to  rule  dis 
creetly,  and  strong  enough  to  rule  firmly 
and  gently.  The  born  ruler  may  some 
times  tyrannize,  but  he  does  not  nag.  He 
is  not  consciously  greedy  of  authority. 
What  brings  him  out  when  a  great  business 
is  afoot  is  that  he  gets  so  interested  in  the 
job  that  he  would  rather  boss  it  himself 
than  see  it  botched.  What  gives  him  place 
and  power  is  the  conviction  of  observers 
that  unless  he  does  boss  the  job  it  will  be 
botched.  Happily  he  is  not  often  needed, 
144 


Some  Human   Cravings 

but  when  he  is  needed  he  is  indispensable, 
and  being  so,  he  is  welcomed. 

All  the  world  loves  a  modest  man — loves 
him  with  a  unanimity  almost  like  that  with 

Modesty  which  it  loves  a  lover.  And  yet 
it  would  not  have  him  too  modest.  If  he 
is  so  modest  that  he  won't  work,  for  fear  he 
will  excel,  his  modesty  is  excessive.  We 
would  have  him  work  for  all  he  is  worth, 
and  get  all  that  is  lawfully  coming  to  him ; 
and  if  his  work  or  his  merit  makes  him 
conspicuous,  we 
would  have  him 
bear  it  like  a 
man,  with  com- 

MODESTY 

posure  and  forti 
tude,  and  never  for  a  moment  let  notoriety, 
however  egregious,  abate  his  just  ambition 
or  deter  him  from  effort. 

It  is  not  a  fault  in  a  man  to  put  a  very 
high  estimate  on  his  own  powrers,  provided 
his  estimate  is  true.  The  offensive  and 
objectionable  person  is  not  the  big  man 
who  realizes  his  size,  but  the  little  man  who 
misapprehends  his  own  dimensions.  The 
great  practical  objection  to  vanity  is  that 
K  145 


Lucid    Intervals 


it  interferes  with  true  vision,  and  either 
makes  men  satisfied  wi^h  too  little  or  else 
causes  them  to  aspire  to  what  is  beyond 
their  powers  or  their  deserts.  The  senti 
mental  objection  to  it  is  that  it  is  not  pleas 
ant.  It  is  irksome  to  hear  a  brave  man 
vaunt  his  valor,  or  a  good  man  his  virtue. 
Still,  we  can  endure  it,  provided  the  valor 
and  the  virtue  really  warrant  the  vaunt. 
Most  men,  however,  who  are  particularly 
brave  or  exceptionally  virtuous,  have  too 
much  sense  to  brag,  and  squelch  their  own 
egotism,  when  they  notice  it,  as  an  unbe 
coming  trait  and  one  unworthy  of  them. 

What  we  all  should  aspire  to  is  to  be  just 
enough  interested  in  ourselves  to  overcome 
our  own  sloth  and  get  out  as  much  as  pos 
sible  of  the  good  there  is  in  us.  We  are  fully 
warranted  in  as  much  tself-interest  as  that, 
for  we  did  not  make  ourselves.  We  are 
each  a  trustee  of  certain  powers,  and  the 
impartial  though  friendly  interest  we  take 
as  trustees  in  the  development  of  those 
powers  is  neither  improper  nor  offensive. 
To  make  the  most  of  ourselves  and  our  fac 
ulties,  in  one  way  or  another,  is  what  we 
146 


Some  Human   Cravings 

are  here  for.  It  is  the  way  to  glorify  God 
and  enjoy  Him,  as  the  catechism  enjoins, 
and  if  we  neglect  it  we  miss  the  very  pith 
of  living.  It  is  our  business  to  find  our 
place  in  the  world  and  work  hard  in  it,  nei 
ther  repining  because  it  is  humble,  nor 
losing  any  lawful  chance  to  better  it.  If 
there  is  leadership  in  any  one  of  us,  and 
modesty  inter! eres  with  its  development, 
such  modesty  is  not  to  be  rated  as  a  virtue, 
for  leadership,  when  it  really  has  a  sound 
basis,  is  a  gift  which  he  who  has  it  should 
not  bury  in  a  napkin  nor  cover  with  a  bush 
el.  If  there  is  light  of  that  quality  in  him, 
and  he  is  too  shamefaced  to  let  it  shine,  so 
much  the  worse  for  him.  The  modesty  that 
would  hide  it  is  a  defect.  It  is  a  species  of 
self-consciousness  which  he  should  be  quit 
of.  Let  him  forget  himself,  and  think  only 
of  the  righteous  work  before  him,  and  how 
best  to  do  it.  If  he  puts  all  he  has  into  the 
work,  he  will  have  no  surplus  energy  for 
self-adulation.  What  vanity  he  cannot 
work  out  may  be  checked,  if  he  is  a  pious 
man,  by  the  exercises  of  religion,  for  season 
able  and  habitual  consideration  of  one's 
147 


Lucid    Intervals 


relations  with  one's  Maker  ought  to  be  a 
sure  corrective  of  undue  self-conceit. 

But  there  is  a  modesty  quite  consistent 
with  leadership  and  the  fullest  development 
of  all  that  makes  a  man  great,  which  is  a 
charming  grace,  and  makes  more  admira 
ble  every  man  who  has  it.  It  is  inborn  in 
some  men,  and  makes  them  beloved,  and 
it  ought  to,  for  it  is  the  fine  flower  of  unsel 
fishness,  and  if  not  a  great  virtue  in  itself, 
it  is  at  least  a  great  ornament  to  virtue. 

Lincoln  never  lacked  due  confidence  in 
his  own  judgment,  nor  ever  hesitated  to  as 
sume  responsibility,  nor  took  a  low  seat 
when  duty  called  him  to  the  head  of  the 
table;  yet  Lincoln  was  a  modest  man.  He 
was  ambitious,  but  his  ambitions  were  the 
aspirations  of  a  strong  soul  seeking  service. 
Neither  arrogance,  nor  jealousy,  nor  ego 
tism  ever  stood  in  his  way  or  hindered 
him  from  getting  help  whenever  he  could 
find  it. 

Grant  was  modest,  too — modest  to  a  fault 

— for  first  and  last  he  deferred  too  many 

times  to  the  judgment  of  men  less  worthy 

and  less  wise  than  himself.     Yet  his  free- 

148 


Some  Human   Cravings 

dom  from  vanity  was  a  delightful  trait  in 
him,  and  helped  to  make  him  beloved. 

Great  parts,  high  character,  probity,  en 
ergy,  and  true  heroism,  are  not  incompat 
ible  with  personal  vanity,  and  a  big  man 
who  may  be  vain  is  much  to  be  preferred 
at  a  pinch  in  affairs  to  a  small  man  who 
isn't ;  but  a  sincere  and  disciplined  mod 
esty  is  so  becoming,  and  seems  so  cheap  at 
the  price,  that  we  are  justified  in  expecting 
every  sensible  man  to  cultivate  it. 

But  we  ought  not  to  be  feeble-spirited. 
If  we  really  are  feeble  beings,  it  may  be  the 
wiser  course  to  recognize  it,  tacitly,  and 
act  accordingly,  letting  stouter  hearts  and 
stronger  minds  take  the  lead.  But  if  we 
are  not  really  feeble,  but  merely  peacea 
ble,  or  perhaps  a  bit  lazy,  we  should  take 
care  not  to  let  the  appearance  of  feebleness 
become  too  firmly  fixed  in  us.  Timely 
manifestations  of  underlying  vigor  often 
have  a  good  effect,  provided  they  really 
are  timely  and  arise  out  of  a  sufficient  oc 
casion.  They  need  not  be  rows.  Rows 
are  wasteful  expedients,  born  usually  of 
bad  temper,  which  in  turn  is  apt  to  be  due 
149 


Lucid  Intervals 


to  disturbed  health.  They  rarely  do  any 
real  good,  and,  so  far  from  promoting  one's 
self-respect,  a  self-respecting  person  who 
allows  himself  to  get  into  a  row  usually 
hates  himself  so  violently  afterwards  that 
his  modesty,  instead  of  being  corrected, 
is  aggravated  by  it.  Avoid  rows  if  pos 
sible.  They  shorten  life,  besides  making 
it  unpleasant.  Due  self-assertion  may  be 
accomplished  without  them.  The  strong 
man  may  fight,  but  he  does  not  squabble. 
He  wrill  ignore  fly-bites  ;  he  will  concede 
the  unessential.  When  he  puts  forth  his 
strength,  it  will  be  for  something  worth 
having.  If  he  takes  a  bone  that  is  in  dis 
pute,  it  will  be  a  bone  with  meat  on  it.  If 
he  makes  a  point  on  what  seems  slight  oc 
casion,  it  will  be  a  point  with  a  principle 
behind  it.  The  man  who  knows  his  place 
and  takes  it  is  not  troublesome,  whether 
the  place  be  high  or  low.  He  is  the  friend 
of  order,  and  by  holding  his  own  without 
jealousy  or  noise  or  fuss,  he  helps  other 
men  to  feel  secure  in  the  places  that  they 
find. 
It  is  a  truism  that  the  way  to  relieve  the 


Some  Human   Cravings 

mind  is  to  give  it  change  of  employment. 
Minds  that  have  been  busied  with  conceal- 
The  Relief  of  merit  are  relieved  by  confes- 
the  Mind  sion  or  by  being  found  out. 
Minds  that  have  played  too  hard  are  re 
freshed  by  work.  Minds  that  have  work- 


THE    RELIEF    OF    THE    MIND" 


ed  too  hard,  by  play.  Minds  that  have 
been  brooding  over  pecuniary  losses  are 
much  helped  by  consideration  of  timely 
gains,  and  minds  that  have  strained  them 
selves  by  trying  overlong  to  retain  their 
contents  are  sometimes  eased  by  letting 
themselves  out.  But  this  last  sort  of  relief 
has  its  hazards,  and  is  not  to  be  risked  often 
or  on  small  occasions.  To  be  lasting  it  must 
be  justified,  and  must  follow  the  failure  of 
more  prudent  measures.  A  mere  lapse  of 
patience  results  not  in  permanent  relief  at 
all,  but  in  mischief.  A  good  and  conscien 
tious  person  who  gives  way  to  temper,  and 
uses  emphatic  language  served  hot,  is  too 


Lucid  Intervals 


likely  to  prepare  for  himself  a  painful  sea 
son  of  repentance  and  remorse.  To  be  irri 
table  and  let  it  out  is  worse  than  to  be  irri 
table  and  hold  it  in.  There  is  no  true  relief 
to  the  mind  in  indulging  irritation.  Yet 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  righteous  indigna 
tion,  and  there  are  times  when  free  and  elo 
quent  expression  of  one's  feelings  clears  the 
air  and  sweetens  one's  whole  environment 
for  days.  Before  attempting  such  expres 
sion  one  must  be  sure  that  the  license  for  it 
has  been  issued.  The  circumstances,  too, 
must  have  been  favorable  for  an  unusual 
accumulation  of  energy.  There  can  be  no 
relief  wrorth  talking  about  unless  there  has 
previously  been  corresponding  restraint. 
Petulant  persons  whose  safety-valves  fly 
open  at  the  slightest  pressure  can  never 
hope  to  find  a  great  moving  force  in  indig 
nation.  They  are  like  toy  engines — built 
to  look  at,  but  not  to  do  hard  work,  and  es 
pecially  designed  not  to  burst.  At  the  least 
strain  "  peep  "go  their  little  whistles,  and 
the  extra  steam  passes  out  in  a  white  puff. 
Not  of  that  construction  was  David  the 
Psalmist,  who  has  described  the  whole  proc- 


Some  Human   Cravings 

ess  of  the  accumulation  of  energy  and  its 
eventual  relief  : 

"  I  was  dumb  with  silence ;    I  held    my   peace  even 

from  good  ; 

And  my  sorrow  was  stirred. 
My  heart  was  hot  within  me; 
While  I  was  musing  the  fire  burned ; 
Then  spake  I  with  my  tongue." 

It  must  have  been  a  fine  discourse ;  a 
profound  relief  to  David,  and  profitable  for 
discipline  to  whoever  heard  it.  Such  dis 
courses  ought  to  do  good  at  both  ends.  They 
should  be  timely,  eloquent,  and  just.  They 
should  not  only  relieve  the  speaker,  but  edify 
the  audience.  Then  they  are  justified,  and 
leave  no  remorse  behind. 

It  is  much  more  prudent  to  relieve  the 
mind  at  the  cost  of  a  third  person  than  to 
break  its  vial  of  wrath  on  the  head  of  the 
real  disturber  of  its  peace.  Most  of  us, 
therefore,  follow  that  method  more  faith 
fully,  or  less  so,  according  as  discretion  or 
audacity  is  our  governing  characteristic. 
To  be  incensed  by  the  conduct  of  Jones  and 
to  go  to  Jones  and  tell  him  so  may  do  some 
good,  but  it  is  a  hazardous  proceeding. 
'53 


Lucid   Intervals 


Jones's  conduct  may  be  no  business  of  ours 
whatever.  To  rate  him  for  it  may  upset 
all  our  relations  with  him  and  change  friend 
ship  to  hostility.  Moreover,  we  may  have 
misjudged  him  and  be  wrong  in  our  deduc 
tions,  and  in  such  a  case  it  would  be  most 
awkward  to  have  him  know  it.  The  methcd 
that  accords  better  with  prudence,  and  with 
the  practice  of  most  of  us,  is  to  suppress  our 
disapproval  of  Jones  as  long  as  we  can,  and 
when  we  can't  keep  bottled  any  longer,  go 
not  to  Jones,  but  to  Smith  or  Robinson  and 
unload  on  him.  After  such  an  unbottling 
it  is  still  possible  to  maintain  relations  with 
Jones,  and  if  it  turns  out  that  we  have  mis 
judged  him,  there  is  not  so  much  embar 
rassment  about  backing  water.  Some  per 
sons  always  follow  this  method,  and  find 
the  greatest  relief  in  it.  Aunt  Jane  is  such 
a  person.  She  has  prett}^  definite  views  of 
conduct  and  unusual  intensity  of  feeling, 
and  when  doings  come  to  her  notice  that  she 
disapproves  of  she  takes  it  to  heart,  and  her 
disapproval  sometimes  takes  such  posses 
sion  of  her  that  it  upsets  all  her  enjoyment 
of  life.  Yet,  strenuous  as  Aunt  Jane  is, 


Some  Human   Cravings 

she  is  not  a  very  bold  woman,  and  shrinks 
from  rows  and  the  castigation  of  sinners, 
and  when  her  indignation  reaches  the  point 
where  she  can't  bear  it  any  longer  she  com 
plains  to  Uncle  Tom.  The  summer  that 
Aunt  Jane  spent  at  Narragansett  and  was 
so  scandalized  by  the  affair  between  Mrs. 
Scup  and  young  Tautog  very  nearly  fin 
ished  Uncle  Tom.  He  liked  the  Scups  ;  so 
did  Aunt  Jane.  He  disliked  to  see  Flora 
Scup  play  so  hard  with  Tautog,  but  for  his 
part  he  looked  on  it  as  something  that  he 
could  not  help,  so  he  took  the  most  chari 
table  and  hopeful  view  that  he  could  of  it, 
and  played  piquet  with  Scup  while  Flora 
and  Tautog  were  exchanging  confidences. 
But  Aunt  Jane  !  Oh  my  !  It  seemed  to 
take  possession  of  her.  When  Tautog  ap 
peared  on  Saturday  mornings  she  began  to 
simmer,  and  she  got  madder  and  madder 
until  he  left  on  Monday  night.  And  Uncle 
Tom,  poor  gentleman,  led  a  hard  life.  When 
his  hair  began  coming  out  that  fall,  he  said 
it  was  because  Aunt  Jane  boiled  over  on 
him  so  much  in  the  summer.  He  is  a  sym 
pathetic  person,  and  when  Aunt  Jane  de- 


Lucid  Intervals 


nounced  Tautog  and  Flora  to  him  in  the 
night-watches,  it  would  stir  him  so  that  he 
longed  to  sally  out  in  his  pajamas  and  warn 
Tautog  off  the  coast.  But  there  was  Scup, 
either  unconcerned  or  bearing  his  misery  so 
like  a  hero  that  no  one  could  say  for  certain 
whether  he  was  conscious  of  it.  If  he  was 
blind  it  would  have  been  cruel  to  enlighten 
him ;  if  not,  to  precipitate  a  row  would  have 
made  his  load  by  so  much  the  heavier.  So 
Aunt  Jane's  rage  simply  consumed  Uncle 
Thomas,  and  it  was  creditable  to  his  slow, 
burning  construction  that  he  got  through 
the  summer  at  all. 

The  trouble  about  this  form  of  mental  re 
lief  by  resort  to  a  third  person  is  that  there 
are  elements  of  duplicity  and  backbiting  in 
it,  and  also  that  over-indulgence  in  it  fans 
the  very  flame  it  is  designed  to  reduce.  By 
dwelling  upon  discomposing  incidents  and 
reciting  their  iniquities  one  may  aggravate 
one's  own  displeasure.  It  is  not  the  method 
recommended  in  Scripture.  The  counsel 
there  given  is  to  approach  the  sinner  him 
self —  first  alone;  then,  if  necessary,  with 
supplementary  elders.  But  that  method  pre- 
'56 


Some  Human   Cravings 

supposes  a  church  organization  having  ju 
risdiction  in  the  premises,  and  with  powers 
of  discipline  which  the  offenders  respect. 
Whereas,  in  the  case  of  Tautog  and  Flora 
Scup,  there  was  no  church  and  no  elders  to 
appeal  to,  the  only  organization  having  ju 
risdiction,  and  which  the  offenders  regarded, 
being  that  very  loose,  unfeeling,  irresponsi 
ble  one  called  Society.  Aunt  Jane  might 
have  gone  to  Flora  Scup,  or  to  Tautog,  or 
to  both,  and  laid  bare  her  feelings ;  but 
then  what  ?  There  would  have  been  no 
next  step  except  a  quarrel.  She  could  not 
have  summoned  Rittenhouse  Stoughton  and 
Mrs.  Bitoff-More  as  pillars  of  society  to  sup 
plement  her  exhortation.  They  did  not  care 
as  much  for  the  Scups  as  she  did ;  and  far 
from  having  any  disposition  to  meddle,  the 
affair,  in  so  far  as  they  were  cognizant  of  it, 
appealed  to  them  merely  as  an  opportune 
subject  for  conversation.  So  Aunt  Jane,  hon 
est  woman,  boiled  over  on  Uncle  Tom.  Uncle 
Tom's  hair  came  loose,  and  his  brow  devel 
oped  new  wrinkles ;  and  what  happened  to 
the  poor  Scups  is  matter  of  history.  It  was 
a  grievous  pity ;  the  more  so  because  Aunt 


Lucid    Intervals 


Jane  had  steam  enough  up  to  have  done 
some  good,  if  only  it  could  have  been  rightly 
applied.  However,  Aunt  Jane  survived  the 
summer,  and  that  was  something. 

Rakoff  was  telling  me  the  other  day  about 
his  wife's  aunt,  an  ancient  lady  described  as 
Speculation  having  one  f  oot  in  the  grave  and 
the  other  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  who, 
being  very  deaf  and  pretty  blind,  found  a 
gentle  excitement,  which  helped  to  make 
life  profitable  to  her,  in  keeping  up  an  in 
termittent  speculation  in  mining  stocks. 

It  seems  to  be 
a  peculiarity 

13  f          m     1     of    mining 
&       IU     SB   shares   that 

SPECULATION" 


tions  are  recorded  not  in  dollars  or  frac 
tions  of  dollars,  but  in  cents.  A  share 
that  is  worth  a  whole  dollar  is  high,  and 
shares  worth  only  three  or  four  cents  are 
thought  not  to  be  unworthy  of  purchase. 
Accordingly,  when  you  buy  mining  shares 
you  get,  or  seem  to  get,  a  great  deal  for  your 
money.  The  fluctuations  in  the  value  of 
these  insecurities  are  recorded  in  the  public 
158 


Some  Human   Cravings 

prints,  and  it  is  almost  as  much  fun  to  fol 
low  them  up  and  down  as  though  they  were 
railroad  shares  or  bonds.  Rakoff  says  his 
wife's  aunt's  mining  shares  are  more  to 
her  than  solitaire  or  whist,  and  that  as  a 
tie  to  connect  her  with  this  world  and  give 
her  a  healthy  interest  in  the  newspapers 
they  are  invaluable.  He  feels  that  every 
one,  especially  all  persons  who  lead  retired 
or  humdrum  lives,  ought  to  have  a  little  col 
lection  of  shares  in  various  enterprises  just 
to  help  keep  them  alive ;  but  I  don't  know 
how  far  his  sentiments  about  it  are  disinter 
ested,  for  the  form  of  recreation  which  it 
suits  him  to  call  his  work  is  the  buying  and 
selling  of  stocks  for  other  persons,  and  he 
makes  his  living  in  that  way. 

It  seems  a  variable  sort  of  living.  Only 
a  few  years  ago  Rakoff 's  acquaintances 
were  despondent  about  his  fiscal  condition, 
and  speculated  anxiously  and  with  sym 
pathy  as  to  his  family's  chances  of  getting 
through  the  winter.  That  was  after  '93, 
when  all  values  sank  in  the  ground,  and 
the  brokers  sat  around  for  four  years  and 
watched  the  hole.  It  was  a  long  vigil,  but 


Lucid    Intervals 


later  Rakoff  got  on  his  legs  again  and 
shone  in  fine  raiment ;  and  no  wonder, 
when  the  land  seemed  full  of  money,  and 
every  one  who  had  a  store  in  a  stocking 
seemed  to  have  got  it  out  for  use.  To  buy 
a  lot  of  something  at  80  and  sell  it  within 
a  month  at  par  seems  a  great  deal  more 
profitable  than  work,  as  well  as  easier. 
We  have  seen  it  done  so  much  that  it  is 
no  wonder  that  we  who  have  not  done 
it  should  feel  the  need  of  some  consoling 
reflections  to  reconcile  us  to  our  apparent 
neglect  of  golden  chances. 

Ever  since  letters  were  invented  it  has 
been  one  of  the  duties  of  scribes  to  use  all 
honorable  means  to  convince  their  fellows 
that  there  are  better  things  in  life  than  get 
ting  rich.  There  is  no  argument  on  the 
subject  which  is  not  several  thousand  years 
old,  nor  is  there  any  sound  one  that  is  not 
just  as  timely  now  as  when  it  was  first  ad 
vanced.  All  the  obvious  drawbacks  of  af 
fluence  displayed  and  demonstrated  for  gen 
erations  innumerable  have  not  availed  to 
break  us  poor  human  creatures  of  a  sneak 
ing  eagerness  to  be  a  little  richer  than  we 
160 


Some  Human   Cravings 

are.  It  is  a  healthy  tendency  that  makes 
for  civilization's  advancement.  Good  for 
us  if  we  can  make  our  labors  profitable  and 
reap  due  rewards  !  Good  for  us  if  we  are 
long-headed  enough  to  practise  thrift  and 
hold  on  to  a  share  of  our  earnings  !  Good 
for  us  if  we  can  invest  our  savings  wisely, 
so  that  they  may  roll  up  on  their  own  ac 
count  !  Good  for  us  if  by  the  exercise  of 
our  energy  and  discretion  we  make  poor 
property  good  !  What  is  not  good  for  us 
is  to  cultivate  in  ourselves  the  lazy  desire 
to  get  something  for  nothing;  to  get  rich 
without  due  interposition  of  honest  work  or 
prudence  or  foresight  of  our  own.  To  have 
money  to  invest  is  to  be  in  a  fortunate  case. 
To  invest  it  in  property  that  is  increasing 
in  value  is  an  excellent  plan  if  one  can  com 
pass  it.  Very  many  persons  compassed  it 
two  years  ago,  when  almost  all  property 
increased  in  value.  It  may  even  be  excusa 
ble,  if  one  has  money  to  spare,  to  spend  it 
in  buying  chances  in  the  great  Wall  Street 
lottery,  where  the  fluctuations  of  the  mar 
ket  may  sweep  it  all  away  or  greatly  in 
crease  it.  What  is  certain  is  that  when 
L  161 


Lucid   Intervals 


one  has  not  the  money  to  spare  one  ought 
not  to  gamble,  and  that  when  one  has  no 
funds  to  invest  it  is  an  ill  use  of  thought  to 
ponder  on  the  rise  in  securities  which  one 
cannot  buy. 

We  don't  envy  Van  Tort,  the  gambler, 
when  he  gathers  up  his  winnings  and  rises 
from  the  green  table.  We  say:  "He  has 

won,  but   to 
morrow  he  will 
lose;  and  even 
though    he 
could   keep 
what  he  wins, 
who  would  live 
a   gambler's 
life,   and   be 
racked  by   its 
anxieties?" 
Neither  should 
we    envy   our 
fellows   who 
seem  to   have 
found  a  profit  in  Wall  Street.  If  we  cannot  be 
investors,  let  us  decline  with  equanimity  all 
enticements  to  be  gamblers,  as  necessitating 
162 


"WE  DON'T  ENVY  VAN  TORT" 


Some  Human   Cravings 

a  manner  of  life  which  is  inconsistent  with 
that  we  wish  to  lead,  and  hopes  and  fears 
and  worries  and  incessant  attention  which 
are  incompatible  with  serenity  of  mind  or 
successful  application  in  other  fields  of  en 
deavor.  If  one  is  aged  and  infirm,  like 
RakofTs  wife's  aunt,  and  is  shut  off  from 
most  pleasant  sights  and  sounds,  and  hard 
pressed  for  mental  occupation,  a  measure 
of  timely  and  gentle  speculation  is  perhaps 
an  excusable  amusement.  So  if  one  be 
lieves  that  to  be  a  gambler  is  his  true  calling, 
and  is  properly  equipped  for  that  industry, 
and  buttressed  with  philosophy  and  dia 
monds  and  other  effects  convenient  for  use 
as  collateral  security,  there  seems  no  con 
clusive  reason  why  he  should  not  sally  forth 
and  concentrate  his  mind  on  the  acquisition 
of  experience.  But  persons  who  are  not 
drawn  to  speculation  for  its  own  sake,  but 
merely  as  a  means  of  getting  money  with 
out  labor,  make  poor  gamblers.  If  they 
intend  to  make  their  living  in  some  other 
calling,  they  had  better  stick  to  that  calling, 
and  not  distract  their  minds  by  speculation. 
They  may  invest,  and  if  they  reap  a  profit 
163 


Lucid   Intervals 


from  good  investments,  so  much  the  better 
for  them.  But  it  is  not  for  them  to  keep 
the  run  of  good  chances — to  try  to  know 
when  to  get  in  and  when  to  get  out ;  to  buy 
at  the  lowest  point  and  sell  at  the  highest. 
That  is  a  business  by  itself — like  three-card 
monte  or  piracy — and  the  usual  result  of 
an  attempt  to  combine  it  with  some  other 
business  is  that  the  other  business  suffers. 
If  you  would  speculate  pleasantly,  without 
actually  making  it  a  business,  you  must 
have  time  to  spare  as  well  as  money,  and  a 
little  spare  money  and  much  spare  time 
make  a  better  combination  than  the  reverse 
of  those  proportions. 

It  is  a  commonplace  to  add  that  gambling 
is  a  dangerous  amusement,  like  drink,  be 
cause  of  its  tendency  to  sweep  unwary  per 
sons  off  their  legs.  Still,  ordinary  obser 
vation  seems  to  warrant  the  surmise  that, 
just  as  millions  of  our  fellows  are  able  to 
practise  a  limited  indulgence  in  intoxicants 
without  moral  or  physical  collapse,  so  mill 
ions  at  one  time  or  another  amass  a  modest 
experience  of  the  vicissitudes  of  speculation 
without  losing  their  self-control,  or  the  funds 
164 


Some  Human   Cravings 

of  any  one  except  themselves.  The  great 
ocean  of  rum  is  clogged  with  wreckage ; 
the  shores  of  the  sea  of  chance  are  white 
with  bones ;  but  both  of  these  treacherous 
surfaces  are  constantly  traversed  by  mill 
ions  of  adventurers  who  contrive  somehow 
to  reach  a  port. 


VII 

'ENERGY  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES 


VII 

ENERGY  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES 

EVERYBODY  in  the  world  belongs  to 
one  of  two  classes — to  those  who  have  joys 
in  hand  and  troubles  to  seek,  or  to  those 
who  have  troubles  in  hand  and  joys  to  seek. 
We  see  it  everywhere — folks  who  have  the 
luxuries  of  life,  in  a  quest  for  its  difficul 
ties  ;  and  folks  who  find  difficulties  in  great 
store  ready-made  to  their  hand,  in  search 
of  its  luxuries,  ay,  in  passionate  quest  even 
of  its  necessaries.  It  is  all  so  plain  to  the 
observant  eye  that  the  philosopher  is  cer 
tainly  justified  in  assuring  himself  as  he 
lays  down  his  pen  or  his  pick  or  his  awl  or 
his  pill-case,  or  his  law-book,  that  if  it  is 
the  common  lot,  and  the  unavoidable  con 
dition  of  contentment  to  strain  after  some 
thing,  it  is  more  interesting  and  better  sport 
169 


Lucid  Intervals 


to  strain  after  something  that  is  vitally 
important  than  after  a  thing  which  is  of 
no  particular  consequence  when  you  have 
got  it.  The  struggle  for  bread  finds  an 
immense  reward  in  the  bread,  if  you  man 
age  to  get  it,  for  bread  is  truly  important, 
albeit  not  the  only  good  that  life  demands. 
The  struggle  for  the  ordinary  luxuries  of 
life — for  education,  a  choice  of  work,  reputa 
tion,  and  satisfactory  maintenance — abounds 
in  excellent  hazards  and  chances  which 
keep  the  mind  alert  and  give  a  motive  for 
maintaining  all  the  faculties  at  the  point 
of  greatest  efficiency.  Just  as  soon  as  the 
satis  action  of  all  reasonable  wants  is  as 
sured,  the  need  of  a  provision  of  new  dif 
ficulties  immediately  becomes  apparent. 
Nature  orders  it  so.  She  says  that  men 
shall  either  work  or  rot.  The  rot  may  be 
dry-rot,  or  it  may  be  the  moister  form.  It 
may  be  intellectual  or  it  may  be  alcoholic. 
In  some  form  it  impends  over  every  idle 
person,  and  the  fear  of  it,  recognized  or  in 
stinctive,  tends  to  make  the  comfortable  un 
comfortable  and  goads  the  ought-to-be-con 
tented  into  restlessness.  It  puts  some  men 
170 


Energy    and   Its    Consequences 

on  horses  and  sends  them  over  stiff  fences ; 
it  sends  others  far  into  the  woods  to  live 
on  tea  and  bacon  and  try  to  shoot  beasts ; 
it  drives  others  to  golf,  or  to  polo,  or  to  stag 
ger  along  under  huge  loads  of  business  re 
sponsibility,  and  others  it  sends  into  poli 
tics  or  compels  to  busy  themselves  with 
founding  colleges  and  promoting  charities 
or  scientific  research. 

It  is  very  much  the  same  with  nations. 
Countries  where  people  have  a  hard  time  to 
keep  alive  usually  find  occupation  enough 
in  trying  to  get  richer;  but  growing  rich 
— if  they  don't  grow  effete — they  grow  am 
bitious,  or  greedy,  or  benevolent,  or  develop 
some  other  form  of  uneasiness,  and  are  lia 
ble  from  pure  need  of  being  stirred  up  to 
break  out  in  some  unexpected  place. 

We  must  not  be  impatient  with  our  coun 
try  if  it  undertakes  some  needless  respon- 

War  as  a      sibilities     and    gets,   perhaps, 

Sport        into   some    bad    scrapes.      As 

a  nation  we  had  come  to  be  of  the  class 

that  had  its  joys  in  hand  and  its  troubles 

to  seek.     We  were  rich  and  strong,  and 

possibly    we    needed    a    new    experience. 

171 


Lucid    Intervals 


Many  a  rich  man,  with  nothing  in  partic 
ular  to  do,  has  been  respited  from  impend 
ing  lethargy  by  a  thoroughly  bad  stroke 


DEMORALIZED  ! 
GEN.    BOOM       HAS     CAPTuR£D 
8    MULES.    WILD 


WAR  AS  A  SPORT 

of  business  which  worried  him  into  new 
exertions  and  made  his  pleasures  sweet 
again.  Our  foreign  adventures  and  com 
plications  may  have  an  analogous  effect 
upon  us.  It  is  this  tendency  of  nations  to 
grow  uneasy  as  they  grow  rich  that  com- 
172 


Energy   and   Its    Consequences 

plicates  the  problem  of  abolishing  war. 
Rich  nations  need  sports,  and  among  sports 
war  takes  first  rank.  No  sport  seems  to 
rank  very  high  which  is  not  arduous  and 
somewhat  dangerous.  War  is  the  most  ar 
duous  and  the  most  dangerous  exercise  we 
have.  It  has  been  esteemed  and  faithfully 
practised  since  civilization  began.  It  brings 
out  some  fine  qualities,  as  well  as  most  of 
the  bad  ones.  Its  defenders  have  main 
tained  that  it  was  useful  in  restricting  the 
increase  of  population  in  the  earth,  and 
ameliorating  the  fierceness  of  industrial 
competition.  Altogether  its  merits,  such 
as  they  are,  have  always  been  amply  ap 
preciated;  but  still  the  feeling  grows  that, 
in  spite  of  all  its  uses,  it  costs  too  much,  and 
that  somehow  we  ought  to  get  along  without 
it.  Every  year  it  grows  prospectively  dead 
lier  and  more  expensive,  and  the  burden  of 
keeping  ready  for  it  grows  so  extravagantly 
oppressive  that,  in  Europe  at  least,  the  point 
has  clearly  been  reached  where,  in  spite  of  all 
that  wars  have  done  in  times  past  to  further 
civilization,  it  is  seriously  doubted  whether 
any  game  can  be  worth  so  much  candle. 


Lucid  Intervals 


It  is  not  hoped  to  perfect  any  plan  by 
which  the  game  may  be  abolished  altogether. 
The  most  that  f  riends«of  peace  in  Europe  hope 
for  is  to  induce  the  powers  to  agree  not  to 
increase  their  present  armament,  and  so  to 
provide  for  minimizing  the  annual  expendi 
ture  of  candle.     If  such  an  agreement  should 
be  reached  it  would  be  interesting  to  observe 
how  the  integrity  of  the  European  powers 
would  compare  with  that  of  American  rail 
road  presidents,  who  have  been  known  to 
make  solemn  compact  with  one  another  not 
to  cut  rates,  and  then  go  home  and  fall 
straightway  back   into   the  same  ruinous 
practices  from  which  they  had  agreed  to 
abstain.     Nevertheless,  there  is  a  state  of 
facts  that  constantly  coerces  railroads    to 
respect  their  mutual  agreements,  and  which 
drives   them   ever   to   divide    business   in 
stead  of  wiping  out  all  profit.     Analogous 
considerations  are  constantly  inciting  the 
great  powers  of  earth   to   divide   creation 
instead  of  fighting  over  it.     To  us  Ameri 
cans  who  are  used  to  trusts  and  have  seen 
the  bitterest  commercial  rivals  join   their 
interests  and  work  together,  it  cannot  be  in- 


Energy    and    Its    Consequences 

conceivable  that  the  great  nations  of  earth 
should  do  something  similar,  and  agree  at 
least  to  restrict  the  production  of  war  ma 
terial  for  a  fixed  term. 

These  are  wonderful  times,  and  whoever 
would  forecast  coming  events  and  result 
ing  conditions  has  need  to  take  very  large 
views  of  many  things.  Civilization  is  surg 
ing  on  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  world. 
In  Asia  and  Africa  the  Caucasian  daily  en 
larges  and  perfects  his  dominion.  Coal,  iron, 
and  electricity  are  making  all  places  acces 
sible  ;  soldiers  and  missionaries  are  making 
all  places  comparatively  safe.  Soon  it  is  like 
ly  to  come  to  pass  that  there  will  be  no  corner 
of  the  earth  left  which  is  not  held  or  protected 
by  some  power  that  is  strong  enough  to  de 
fend  it.  Soon,  too,  it  seems  likely  that  the 
great  political  forces  of  the  world  will  com 
pose  two  or  three  groups  of  allied  nations, 
bound  together  for  mutual  protection.  If  that 
comes  to  pass  humanity  will  be  organized  as 
it  never  has  been  before.  How  will  it  stand 
so  much  organization  ?  That  power  should 
be  bunched  instead  of  scattered  seems  to 
make  for  peace.  Each  group  will  strive  to 


Lucid  Intervals 


keep  the  peace  among  its  own  members,  and 
will  have  a  powerful  motive  for  restraining 
any  of  those  members  from  coming  to  blows 
with  any  member  of  another  group.  The 
influence  of  organization  will  tend  to  hinder 
all  wars  except  those  between  groups,  and 
these  would  be  so  enormously  costly  and 
destructive  that  the  imagination  recoils 
from  the  thought  of  them. 

With  such  considerations  as  these  to 
swell  one's  hopes  of  peace,  the  greatest  ob 
stacle  to  the  discontinuance  of  war  seems  its 
standing  as  a  sport.  Can  we  get  along  yet 
without  the  agitation  of  occasional  fight 
ing?  Would  the  other  competitions,  both  be 
tween  individuals  and  between  nations,  suf 
fice  long  to  make  life  interesting  enough  to 
be  endurable  ?  None  can  answer  that  ques 
tion.  Earth  knows  well  what  it  is  to  have 
too  much  war,  but  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
having  too  little,  she  has  not  experienced  it. 
What  comes  when  two  nations  are  really 
spoiling  for  a  fight  and  don't  get  it  ?  Do 
they  spoil  ?  Is  it  something  of  that  sort,  for 
example,  that  seems  to  ail  France  ?  Little 
wars  answer  the  purpose  of  sport  very  well. 
176 


Energy   and   Its    Consequences 

England  is  always  fighting  somewhere,  and 
that  is  one  reason  why  English  families  are 
still  as  large  as  ever,  and  the  race  seems  in 
no  danger  of  running  out.  Our  little  war 
had  a  soothing  effect  on  us.  We  are  not 
spoiling  for  a  fight  now. 

Oh,  well ;  let  us  hope  on.  Perhaps  this 
need  of  war  is  an  imaginary  ailment,  which 
is  only  real  for  lack  of  being  efficiently  con 
tradicted.  Gentlemen  used  to  fight  duels, 
but  that  practice  has  practically  gone  out  of 
use  in  fully  civilized  society,  and  isn't  very 
common  even  in  continental  Europe.  Then, 
too,  the  other  sports  have  gained  hugely  in 
their  rivalry  of  fighting.  As  Nature  gives 
up  more  and  more  of  her  secrets,  the  work  of 
wresting  them  from  her  is  far  more  exciting 
than  it  used  to  be.  Money-making  is  a 
livelier  pastime  also,  and  a  satisfaction  to 
those  who  are  good  at  it.  There  is  golf 
too  !  Perhaps  we  can  get  on  without  war, 
but  we  can't  abolish  it  suddenly.  Learn 
ing  to  dispense  with  it  will  be  a  slow  and 
gradual  process,  and  slow  processes  are 
not  much  in  favor  writh  the  contemporary 
American. 

M  177 


Lucid  Intervals 


Yet  the  more  gradual  processes  have  a 
great  deal  on  their  side.  It  takes  three 
Development  weeks  for  a  responsible  hen, 
by  incuba-  using  due  diligence,  to  hatch 
out  a  setting  of  eggs.  A  per 
son  whose  exploit  the  newspapers  record 
maintains  that  in  his  incubator,  run  by 
his  methods,  chickens  are  hatched  in  eight 
days.  That  is  in  itself  a  suggestive  fact, 
but  not  so  suggestive  as  what  follows; 
for  he  says  that  chickens  hatched  in  his  in 
cubator,  in  air  carefully  moistened  and 
cleaned,  are  different  from  ordinary  incu 
bator  chickens,  in  that  their  flesh  isn't 
stringy  and  does  not  taste  of  coal-oil. 

Now,  I  had  noticed  that  the  spring  chick 
ens  of  ordinary  contemporaneous  experi 
ence  do  not  compare  to  advantage  with 


DEVELOPMENT  BY  INCUBATION 

the  spring  chickens  of  memory.     I  had  no 
ticed  that  they  had  no  taste  and  afforded 
little  nourishment,  but  I  had  been  willing 
178 


Energy    and    Its    Consequences 

to  surmise  that  it  was  because  I  was  old, 
and  not  because  there  was  any  sweeping 
change  in  spring  chickens.  I  was  glad, 
therefore,  to  find  myself  relieved  in  some 
measure  from  the  sense  of  self -imputed 
impairment,  and  to  find  a  basis  for  the  sus 
picion  that  modern  improvement  had  done 
its  work,  and  that  spring  chicken  nowa 
days  is  not  what  it  used  to  be. 

The  same  charge  has  been  made  about 
English  mutton.  Time  was  in  England 
when  mutton  was  mutton,  and  had  a  flavor. 
The  sheep  grazed  on  the  hills  of  Britain, 
nibbled  British  grasses,  and  looked  out  on 
gentle  British  landscapes  for  four  or  five 
years,  until  it  grew  up  and  had  assimilated 
its  due  allowance  of  the  blessings  of  life. 
Then,  when  it  came  on  the  table,  it  was 
something  to  remember  and  be  thankful  for. 
Now  it  no  longer  pays  to  let  a  sheep  live  after 
it  has  once  got  its  growth.  Mutton  has  no 
longer  any  taste,  the  British  epicures  tell  us. 

I  confess,  though,  that  it  was  news  to  me 

that  spring  chickens  tasted  of  coal-oil.  They 

do.     They  must.     Chickens  which  as  eggs 

have  laid  for  weeks,  unconscious  of  mater- 

179 


Lucid    Intervals 


nal  tenderness,  in  an  atmosphere  warmed 
by  smoky  kerosene  lamps,  ought  to  taste  of 
oil  and  ought. to  be  stringy.  Time  has  its 
revenges  ;  so  has  an  artificial  and  unscru 
pulous  expedition.  If  the  eight-da}7  chick 
ens  don't  taste  of  oil,  depend  upon  it  they 
don't  taste  of  anything. 

Of  course,  the  moral  of  all  this  is  self- 
apparent.  It  takes  time  to  get  the  flavor 
out  of  life,  time  to  get  the  flavor  of  life  into 
any  product;  and  time  in  these  days  is 
something  of  the  expenditure  of  which  we 
seem  to  be  feverishly  chary.  "  A  hen's 
time  "  is  of  a  value  traditionally  minute. 
Yet  in  our  eagerness  we  have  got  up  con 
trivances  to  save  it.  So  we  scheme  to  save 
our  own.  All  the  while,  in  all  things,  we 
keep  straining  after  the  accomplishment 
of  the  maximum  of  production  in  the  mini 
mum  of  interval.  We  Americans,  are  we 
going  to  have  any  flavor  that  is  worth  hav 
ing  ?  Or  are  we  going  to  taste  of  mere 
coal-smoke  and  run  to  stringiness  in  fibre  ? 
All  about  we  see  the  incubator  processes  in 
full  blast.  We  see  them  in  art ;  we  see 
them  in  literature.  Our  newspapers  are 
180 


Energy    and   Its    Consequences 

huge  incubators  that  hatch  out  pictures 
and  printed  discourse  with  marvellous  ra 
pidity.  We  see  illustrators  kept  so  busy  by 
the  demands  of  a  press,  or  a  dozen  presses, 
that  time  has  evidently  failed  them  to  hatch 
their  pictures  properly.  We  see  writers,  led 
on  by  the  importunities  of  too  ready  a  mar 
ket,  scrambling  on  with  stenographers  and 
typewriters  to  aid  them  in  an  effort  to  keep 
abreast  of  a  profitable  demand.  We  have 
lately  seen  incubator  methods  applied  to 
the  formation  of  an  army,  and  we  may  be 
excused  for  thinking  it  would  have  been 
better  to  have  set  our  military  hen  in  time. 
We  have  knowledge,  too,  of  incubator  con 
gressmen — citizens  not  trained  to  the  con 
sideration  of  the  problems  of  government, 
but  hatched  out  in  big  unmothered  broods 
into  a  field  not  safely  to  be  traversed  by 
untutored  instinct. 

We  are  wonderfully  quick,  ingenious, 
adaptable.  Those  are  good  qualities.  We 
have  made  extraordinary  material  progress 
in  a  comparatively  short  time,  and  we  have 
visible  results.  So  far,  good ;  but  let  us  take 
care  that  we  do  not  lose  in  flavor  and  qual- 
181 


Lucid    Intervals 


ity  what  we  seem  to  have  gained  in  time. 
Incubator  chickens  may  satisfy  the  forms 
of  eating  and  yet  leave  disappointment  in 
the  memory  and  a  bad  taste  in  the  mouth. 
Incubated  art  won't  last.  No  more  will 
incubated  literature.  Incubator  congress 
men  and  incubator  statesmen !  Woe !  woe  ! 
Well  may  we  wag  our  heads  at  them  and 
their  possible  influence  on  our  country's 
destinies  !  Let  us  take  time,  even  though 
it  is  inconvenient.  A  country  that  tastes 
of  the  smoke  of  the  lamp  that  hatched  it  will 
not  do. 


VIII 

CONSIDERATION    OF    SOME 
THEOLOGIES 


VIII 

A   CONSIDERATION   OF    SOME 
THEOLOGIES 

A  NEWSPAPER — a  careful  Boston  news 
paper — in  telling  of  the  address  of  a  woman 
"With  the  missionary  of  long  experience 
Approval  of  in  Turkey  to  a  Boston  au 
dience,  represented  her  as  say 
ing  of  the  Armenian  massacres  that  the 
victims,  being  Christians,  "  recognized  that 
these  things  could  only  exist  with  the  ap 
proval  of  God,  and  that  they  were  ready  to 
accept  the  slaughters  as  the  result  of  the 
Divine  Will."  It  is  very  possible  that  she 
did  not  speak  the  precise  words  imputed  to 
her,  but  the  doctrine  they  express  is  familiar, 
and  seems  to  the  present  lay  writer  to  be 
sufficiently  erroneous  and  misleading  to 
be  worth  a  remonstrance.  The  idea  that 
185 


Lucid  Intervals 


the  Armenian  massacres  and  all  horrors 
of  the  sort,  as  well  as  the  plague  in  India, 
and  famine,  pestilence,  and  sudden  death 
in  all  their  manifestations  occur  "  with  the 
approval  of  God,"  is  not  only  abhorrent  to 
our  sense  of  divine  goodness,  but  altogether 
unnecessary  to  our  belief  in  omnipotence. 
We  are  taught,  it  is  true,  that  a  sparrow 
does  not  fall  to  the  ground  without  the  di 
vine  knowledge,  but  knowledge  is  one  thing 
and  approval  another.  The  least  reflection 
must  apparently  convince  any  thinking 
person  that  the  world  abounds  in  things, 
actions,  and  occurrences  which  a  good  God 
must  regard  with  the  profoundest  disap 
proval.  If  He  does  not  put  a  stop  to  them 
it  is  not  because  He  approves  but  because 
that  is  not  Inscrutable  Wisdom's  way  of 
doing  things. 

No,  good  missionary,  if  you  have  told 
the  poor  Armenians  that  their  slaughter 
is  approved  by  God,  you  have  told  them 
what  is  not  true  ;  if  you  have  assured  them 
that  God  has  afflicted  them  for  a  wise  pur 
pose,  you  have  asserted  what  is  exceedingly 
doubtful  and  what  you  cannot  possibly 
186 


Consideration  of  Some  Theologies 

prove ;  if  you  have  advised  them,  as  you 
say,  to  submit  meekly  to  extirpation  as 
being  God's  decree,  you  have  given  them 
bad  advice ;  and  if  you  had  assured  them 
that  God  permits  nothing  that  is  not  for 
the  welfare  of  his  creatures,  how  had  you 
the  face  to  ask  Boston  to  contribute  to  the 
relief  of  "  the  smitten  people  ?" 

You  were  right  in  asking  for  the  money, 
but  sadly  out  in  the  theology  that  led  you 
up  to  it.  If  you  would  know  what  is  God's 
will,  shut  up  some  of  your  theological  trea 
tises  and  come  and  look  around.  It  ac 
cords  with  the  observation  of  the  wisest  of 
mankind  that  when  God  made  the  world 
He  made  certain  laws  to  govern  it,  and 
that,  as  a  general  thing,  He  leaves  those 
laws  alone  and  lets  things  work  out  ac 
cording  to  them.  Human  bodies  are  heav 
ier  than  water,  therefore  if  even  the  kindest 
and  best  person  falls  in  where  the  water  is 
over  his  head  and  cannot  swim,  he  drowns. 
It  is  God's  will  that  fishes  should  be  able 
to  live  under  water,  but  He  has  made  no 
provision  for  submarine  men,  and  divers 
must  take  their  own  risks.  It  is  God's  will 
187 


Lucid   Intervals 


that  pure  water  should  be  wholesome  for 
human  beings.  Impure  water  He  has  re 
served  for  the  benefit  of  other  forms  of  life. 
If  a  man,  good  or  bad,  drinks  impure  wa 
ter  it  makes  him  sick;  but  if  he  dies  it  is 
not  because  God  approves,  but  because  he 
had  ignorantly  violated  one  of  God's  rules. 
God  does  not  accept  ignorance  as  an  excuse 
for  the  violation  of  His  physical  laws,  how 
ever  it  may  be  with  moral  ones. 

As  to  the  Armenians  :  It  accords  with 
God's  laws  that  if  a  Kurdish  soldier  hits  an 
Armenian  hard  in  the  head  with  a  weapon, 
the  Armenian  shall  die.  But  if  the  Arme 
nian  can  hit  the  Kurd  first,  and  hit  him 
hard  enough,  why  is  it  not  equally  agree 
able  to  the  Divine  Will  that  the  Kurd  should 
die  ?  Armenian  or  Kurd  dies  in  accord 
ance  with  natural  laws;  but  that  he  dies 
with  God's  approval  in  any  other  sense  is 
still  less  true  than  in  the  case  of  the  drown 
ing  man.  For  the  Kurd  is  a  brute  and  an 
oppressor ;  and  though  God  has  endowed 
brute  force  and  oppression  with  certain 
powers,  the  strongest  of  all  the  tendencies 
He  has  given  us  is  to  rise  up  against  it. 
188 


Consideration  of  Some  Theologies 

Is  even  the  mere  instinct  of  self-preserva 
tion  opposed  to  the  will  of  God  ?  If  we  sus 
pect  that  there  is  sewer-gas  in  our  houses, 
we  do  not  bow  to  any  supposed  will  of  God 
and  try  to  be  patient  under  it.  We  get  the 
plumbers  in  to  rip  up  the  premises  and  try 
to  get  it  out.  If  we  get  diphtheria  germs 
in  our  throats,  we  don't  kiss  the  rod.  We 
call  in  the  doctor  and  try  the  latest  serum. 
If  we  fall  into  the  water  we  thank  God  that 
we  have  learned  to  swim.  What  should 
we  do  if  Kurds  come  to  knock  us  on  the 
head  and  carry  off  our  women  ?  Would 
you  tell  us  to  kiss  the  rod,  and  that  what 
ever  happened  was  with  God's  approval  ? 
Oh,  good,  but  illogical,  missionary!  You 
would  say  to  us :  "  Fight !  fight !  kill !  Die, 
if  you  must,  but  die  hard.  Since  whatever 
happens  happens  with  God's  approval,  see 
to  it,  if  you  can,  that  it  happens  with  your 
approval  also."  Perhaps  you  can't  say  that 
to  the  Armenians;  possibly  the  odds  are 
too  great,  the  conditions  too  desperate.  But, 
at  least,  don't  say  that  they  are  massacred 
with  God's  approval,  nor  tell  us  that  you 
have  bid  them  perish  meekly. 
189 


Lucid   Intervals 


It  is  a  great  mercy  that  Nature  is  inexor 
able,  visiting  the  sins  of  the  fathers  on  the 
inexorable  children,  and  sometimes  vice 
Nature  versa,  with  such  ruthless  cer 
tainty.  If  she  were  not,  what  would  become 
of  this  earth  and  its  population !  If  crime, 
and  drunkenness,  and  laziness,  and  the  per 
petual  chase  after  pleasure  did  not  lead  in 
the  long  run  to  destruction  or  extinction  how 
much  worse  the  world  would  be  than  it  is ; 
how  much  blacker  its  prospects  than  they 
are.  It  is  right  and  necessary  that  the  vic 
tories  of  life  should  be  to  the  strong,  the  ac 
tive,  the  persistent,  and  the  industrious.  It 
is  right  and  necessary  that  the  weak,  and 
the  idle,  and  vicious  should  go  under.  We 
must  approve  Nature's  methods,  but  recog 
nizing  the  immense  power  behind  them,  and 
the  certainty  that  the  work  intrusted  to  them 
will  be  constantly  and  thoroughly  done,  how 
ever  slowly,  we  may  well  leave  it  to  her.  Our 
affair  in  this  world  is  to  lighten  Nature's 
work  of  destroying  the  unfit,  not  by  doing 
it  for  her,  but  by  making  it,  so  far  as  we  can, 
unnecessary.  Her  task  is  to  exterminate 
the  characterless  and  the  bad;  ours  to 
190 


Consideration  of  Some  Theologies 

make  character  grow  where  it  was  lacking, 
and  make  extermination  needless. 

To  encourage  us  in  this  sort  of  well-doing 
we  have  the  knowledge  that  the  whole  com 
munity  of  fit  and  unfit  is  bound  together  by 
ties  so  close  and  strong  that  no  one  can 
wholly  escape  from  the  consequences  of  his 
neighbor's  mischief.  If  the  unfit  get  the 
upper  hand,  the  consequences  fall  upon  the 
evil  and  the  good.  If  too  great  a  proportion 
of  the  community  becomes  rotten,  the  whole 
social  fabric  goes  down.  If  ignorance  and 
vice  rule,  wisdom  and  virtue  cannot  escape 
the  outcome.  Just  as  soon,  therefore,  as 
any  person  is  conscious  that  under  existing 
conditions  he  is  able  to  take  care  of  himself, 
it  becomes  his  business,  as  he  would  avoid 
the  wrath  to  come  for  himself  and  his  de 
scendants,  to  take  care  of  others  and  to  labor 
for  the  diffusion  of  righteousness  and  the 
strengthening  of  human  character.  Alas 
for  him  if  he  says  :  "  I  have  made  my  way. 
I  can  take  care  of  myself.  My  brother  has 
had  an  equal  opportunity.  Let  him  reap 
what  he  has  sown."  Who  made  him  the 
man  he  is  ?  Did  he  make  himself  ?  Doubt- 
191 


Lucid  Intervals 


less  he  had  a  hand  in  it,  but  did  he  choose 
his  own  parents,  and  select  his  own  physical 
and  moral  inheritance  ?  How  can  any  see 
ing  man  who  makes  tolerable  work  of  living 
take  much  credit  for  his  own  success  ?  He 
looks  back  on  his  course.  He  finds  some 
thing  in  him  which  made  him  capable  of  self- 
control  and  persistence ;  some  saving  grace 
of  discernment  that  taught  him  to  turn 
back  where  his  fellow  went  on,  to  go  on 
where  his  fellow  loitered.  Here  necessity 
coerced  him  when  his  will  was  still  weak  and 
the  temptations  of  ease  were  strong  upon 
him.  His  fellow  who  could  stop,  did  stop, 
and  got  no  farther.  He  was  foolish  in  his 
day,  is  still  foolish  on  occasion,  still  makes 
blunders,  but  where  his  folly  is  troublesome, 
his  fellow's  folly  is  ruinous ;  where  his 
blunders  teach  him  something,  his  fellow 
seems  to  learn  nothing  from  mistakes.  It 
seems  not  to  occur  to  many  men  of  reason 
able  probity  to  be  grateful  that  they  have 
sense  enough  to  be  honest;  but  what  true 
occasion  for  thankfulness  that  is  !  Men 
are  so  strange  in  their  dishonesties.  The 
thefts  of  poor  creatures  ill-born  and  worse 
192 


Consideration  of  Some   Theologies 

brought  up,  whose  breeding  and  training 
leads  naturally  to  crime,  one  can  under 
stand  ;  but  what  of  those  cases  that  con 
stantly  transpire,  of  intelligent  persons,  to 
all  appearance  well-born,  and  trained  in 
good  company  and  by  approved  methods, 
who  betray  their  trusts,  rob  their  clients  or 
their  employers,  and  fall  with  a  crash  that 
spreads  consternation  in  the  communities 
that  knew  them?  Such  cases  are  fit  to 
make  thoughtful  men  who  are  still  honest 
shake  in  their  shoes  and  be  grateful  to 
Heaven  that  no  insidious  rot  seems  to  have 
destroyed  the  fibre  of  their  integrity. 

Nature  will  destroy.  Man's  work  is  to  re 
strain,  to  correct,  to  repair.  In  every  dead 
thing  Nature  straightway  develops  means 
of  removal.  When  life  goes  out  of  the  body, 
the  body  itself  soon  disappears.  When 
character  is  dead,  alcohol  and  lust,  hate, 
jealousy,  idleness,  or  violence  rush  in  to  kill 
the  body.  If  character  does  not  survive  and 
increase  in  the  earth,  neither  will  man  thrive 
and  multiply  there.  Nature  will  do  her 
part.  She  will  dispose  of  the  morally  dead 
as  she  does  of  the  physically  dead.  Our 
N  193 


Lucid  Intervals 


work  is  to  supplement  her  labor  by  striving 
constantly  to  swell  the  proportion  of  man 
kind  that  is  fit  to  live  and  do  the  world's 
work.  That  we  do  when  we  promote  true 
religion,  sound  education,  and  good  govern 
ment,  and  procure  the  enforcement  of  just 
laws  which  protect  human  life  and  property 
and  freedom,  and  defend  society  from  its 
enemies.  If  we  are  of  comparatively  sound 
minds  and  bodies,  and  may  reasonably  hope 
to  make  our  journey  through  life  without 
moral  disaster,  it  is  not  all,  not  nearly  all,  an 
exploit  of  our  own.  The  bigger  part  of  it  is 
debt,  owed  to  our  forebears  and  to  God,  and 
to  be  paid  to  the  world  and  those  who  come 
after  us.  If  we  are  not  paying  that  debt  we 
have  no  reason  to  take  pride  in  our  honesty. 
If  we  do  not  feel  that  we  owe  it,  then  truly  it 
is  not  so  large  as  it  might  be,  for  we  are  not 
especially  creditable  products  of  civilization. 
We  do  owe  it.  To  further  peace  on  earth 
and  give  constant  and  practical  evidence  of 
good-will  to  men  is  not  munificence  on  our 
part,  but  mere  part  payment  of  what  we  owe. 
It  is  a  debt  we  cannot  neglect  with  impunity. 
To  pay  it  intelligently  is  to  help  ourselves  as 
194 


Consideration  of  Some   Theologies 

well  as  others.  To  neglect  it  is  to  invite  sure 
reprisals,  which,  even  if  we  seem  to  escape 
them  ourselves,  can  be  depended  on  to  search 
out  our  posterity. 

At  Tranquildale,  that  old-fashioned  place, 
they  still  have  family  prayers,  and  often, 
The  God  of  when  I  am  there,  I  am  delegated 

Battles  to  read  them.  On  a  Sunday 
night  in  1898,  the  day  before  we  got  the  news 
of  the  destruction  of  Admiral  Cervera's  fleet, 
the  Lady  in  Command  handed  me  the  pray 
er-book  with  the  page  open  at  the  "prayer 
to  be  said  before  a  fight  at  sea  against  any 
enemy."  "Read  that  too,"  she  said;  and  I 
read  it :  "  Stir  up  thy  strength,  0  Lord,  and 
come  and  help  us.  .  .  .  Hear  us,  Thy  poor 
servants,  begging  mercy  and  imploring  Thy 
help,  and  that  Thou  wouldest  be  a  defence 
unto  us  against  the  face  of  the  enemy." 

I  told  her  afterwards  that  I  was  ashamed 
to  pray  so  importunately  against  the  poor 
Spanish,  with  whose  predicament  it  was  im 
possible  not  to  feel  sympathy,  and  whose 
fate  seemed  so  conclusively  foregone.  She 
confessed  that  she  felt  so  too,  but  she  had 
no  mind  to  take  an  chances. 


Lucid  intervals 


It  was  interesting,  two  da}^s  afterwards, 
to  find  evidence  of  the  disposition  of  the  men 
who  were  in  the  thickest  of  the  sea-fight  to 
see  the  hand  of  the  God  of  Battles  in  its 
event.  "  God  and  our  gunners  won  it  for  us," 
said  Evans,  and  every  one  has  read  of  the 
pious  impulse  of  Captain  Philip,  of  the  Texas, 
who — stirred  by  the  issue  of  the  fight  in 
which,  though  he  had  himself  a  narrow  es 
cape,  his  vessel  had  had  no  man  hurt — mus 
tered  aft  every  man  who  could  be  spared, 
and  solemnly  gave  God  the  praise. 

When  the  confidence  of  so  many  of  us  in 
the  immediate  instrumentalities  by  which 
our  war  came  about  was  so  imperfect,  and 
so  many  minds  halted  in  apprehension  that 
the  best  intentions  might  not  save  us  from 
doing  more  harm  than  good,  it  must  have 
been  greatly  reassuring  to  be  able  to  have 
confidence  that  back  of  all  human  agencies 
pulling  this  way  and  that  was  a  Divine 
Power  that  had  ends  to  accomplish  and  de 
termined  results.  In  many  of  us  this  con 
fidence,  though  not  wholly  lacking,  was  im 
perfect.  We  were  not  able  to  feel  sure  that 
our  war  had  been  planned  in  heaven,  and 
196 


Consideration  of  Some   Theologies 

that  it  was  the  Divine  intention  that  we 
should  win  it,  but  we  thought  that  we  could 
discern  that  in  a  large  way  it  accorded  with 
the  celestial  plans  for  the  betterment  of 
conditions  in  this  world ;  that  it  was  due  to 
ignorance  and  misgovernment,  the  neglect 
of  opportunities,  misuse  of  means  and  abuse 
of  power  which  it  fell  to  us  to  correct.  We 
believed,  very  honestly,  that  once  the  war 
was  begun,  it  was  best  for  all  the  world  that 
we  should  win  and  win  quickly ;  and  seeing 
that  the  improvement  of  mundane  affairs  is 
reasonably  believed  to  accord  with  the  in 
tentions  of  the  Almighty,  it  was  logical  for 
us  to  back  our  material  forces  with  all  the 
spiritual  means  that  we  could  muster.  Pro 
fessor  Goldwin  Smith  found  fault  with  the 
President's  proclamation  of  a  thanksgiving 
for  our  victories  as  seeming  to  indicate  an 
opinion  that  God  was  more  solicitous  for  our 
well-being  than  that  of  our  Spanish  breth 
ren.  That  seems,  on  the  whole,  rather  a 
superficial  view.  For  one  thing,  we  sincere 
ly  believed  that  the  best  thing  that  could 
happen  to  Spain  would  be  to  lose  all  her 
colonies,  and  probably  Professor  Smith 
197 


Lucid  Intervals 


shared  that  opinion.  So  in  praying  for  our 
own  success  we  were  not  really  invoking  in 
jury  upon  our  neighbor.  Moreover,  we  real 
ized  that  in  war  that  side  usually  wins  which 
is  strongest  and  best  prepared,  and  we  did 
not  expect  to  see  in  our  war  exceptions  to 
that  rule,  nor  believe  that  we  were  special 
favorites  of  the  Almighty,  or  likelj7  to  bene 
fit  by  His  partiality.  What  our  prayers  and 
thanksgivings  and  other  pious  observances 
really  indicated  was  a  desire  to  be  right  and 
a  sense  of  our  responsibility  to  God  for  the 
use  we  make  of  the  means  we  possess.  We 
knew  that  we  were  stronger  and  more  com 
petent  than,  the  Spanish,  and  that,  human 
ly  speaking,  we  could  beat  them.  It  did 
not  seem  to  us  that  we  needed  miracles  to 
help  us,  for  we  felt  able,  as  far  as  fighting 
goes,  to  take  care  of  ourselves.  The  event 
justified  this  opinion.  We  had  wonderful 
victories  at  sea,  where  we  were  extraordi 
narily  efficient,  and  the  Divine  favor  did  not 
hinder  us  from  suffering  on  shore  from  Span 
ish  bullets,  from  fevers  and  disease,  and  in 
some  cases  from  the  results  of  bad  manage 
ment.  These  latter  results  we  did  not  expect 
198 


Consideration  of  Some  Theologies 

to  escape  by  prayer.  What  our  prayerful- 
ness  meant  really  was  that  we  are  a  religi 
ous  people  who  recognize  our  dependence 
on  God,  and  are  conscious  that  our  future 
greatness  and  prosperity  depend  upon  our 
ability  to  shape  our  conduct  in  conformity 
with  His  will.  It  meant,  too,  that  we  were 
conscious  that  our  success  would  help  or 
hurt  us  according  to  our  use  of  its  results ; 
that  if  we  could  make  it  tend  to  the  promo 
tion  of  righteousness  we  should  profit  by  it, 
and  that  if  it  resulted  in  mere  selfish  ag 
grandizement  we  would  suffer.  A  great 
navy  and  an  efficient  army  may  make  a  na 
tion  successful  for  a  while  in  war,  but  we 
know  that  in  themselves  they  do  not  make 
it  really  strong.  The  true  strength  of  a 
nation  lies  in  its  capacity  to  understand 
what  is  right  and  in  its  desire  and  ability 
to  do  it.  We  have  all  along  been  a  great 
deal  more  sure  that  we  could  win  from  Spain 
than  that  we  could  make  a  wise  and  bene- 
ficient  use  of  our  victory.  Now,  therefore, 
that  we  have  won  and  have  the  problems  of 
victory  to  settle,  our  prayers  should  be  more 
urgent  and  constant  than  ever.  It  was  no 
199 


Lucid  Intervals 


great  feat,  with  our  resources,  to  defeat 
Spain,  but  to  be  just  and  merciful  and  wise 
in  victory,  and  to  make  our  success  really 
helpful  to  civilization,  is  matter  difficult 
enough  for  its  accomplishment  to  engage 
the  spiritual  co-operation  of  all  pious-mind 
ed  people. 

I  hope  our  brethren  who  prayed  for  our 
success  in  war  will  keep  on  praying,  and 
those  who  had  scruples  and  didn't  may 
surely  begin  now,  when  there  is  no  longer 
an  enemy  to  be  prayed  (apparently)  against, 
and  all  our  effort  is  to  heal  hurts  and  heart 
aches,  and  try  to  make  it  come  about  that 
justice  and  liberty  shall  go  where  we  have 
sought  to  carry  them. 


IX 

TIMES    AND    SEASONS 


IX 

TIMES   AND    SEASONS 

THERE  is  something  partly  amusing,  part 
ly  pathetic,  about  the  provision  made  by  our 
Lent  spiritual  directors  for  the  great 
duty  of  repentance.  The  continuousness  of  it 
suggests  that  a  provision  for  daily  and  week 
ly  repentance  implies  an  expectation  of  daily 
and  weekly  sin.  If  we  are  miserable  sin 
ners,  and  own  up  to  it  to-da}r,  it  would  seem 
as  though  we  ought  to  be  ashamed  enough 
to  better  our  habits  before  next  Sunday; 
but  next  Sunday  we  will  be  invited  to  hum 
ble  ourselves  again  and  declare  our  con 
trition  for  our  manifold  sins  and  transgres 
sions  of  the  week  just  ended. 

Lent,  being  a  prescribed  annual  season 
of  repentance,  inevitably  implies  an  annual 
period  of  unedifying  indulgences  ;  but  in 
203 


Lucid    Intervals 


spite  of  this  drawback  it  is  an  excellent  in 
stitution,  and  very  popular  with  sensible 
people.  Folks  who  keep  Lent  at  all  seem 
to  find  profit  and  relief  in  it.  For  the  six 
weeks  of  its  continuance  they  need  not  go 
to  any  balls,  and  if  they  have  been  to  a 
good  many  they  are  usually  very  happy 
to  stop  for  a  while  and  make  up  their  sleep. 
If  they  have  dined  out  a  good  deal,  they  are 
glad  of  any  encouragement  to  rest  their 

stomachs.  If  the 
freshness  is  off  their 
gowns,  they  are  glad 
to  catch  their  breaths 
and  consider  the  needs 
of  their  wardrobes ; 
and  if  they  are  of  the  fortunate  number  who 
realize  that  the  spiritual  side  of  us  repays 
attention  now  and  then,  and  that  it  is  bad 
economy  for  people  who  value  happiness 
not  to  throw  their  souls  an  occasional  bone, 
they  can  greatly  promote  the  contentment 
of  their  spirits  by  taking  sober  thought  about 
right  living  and  the  amelioration  of  their 
standards  of  behavior. 

It  is  a  sad  thought— not  really  dismal, 
204 


Times   and   Seasons 


but  just  sober — that  the  people  who  most 
need  to  get  something  out  of  Lent  will  profit 
least  by  it.  The  people  whose  stomachs 
are  the  most  overtaxed  will  practise  the 
least  abstention,  the  people  whose  souls  are 
the  most  starved  will  nourish  them  least 
liberally,  while  persons  who  are  already 
inclined  to  spiritual  dissipation  will  treat 
themselves  to  orgies  of  discipline,  and  per 
haps  fast  themselves  lean  and  sour. 

One  hesitates  to  give  specific  directions 
for  the  observance  of  Lent,  but  on  any  pen 
itent  who  cares  for  lay  counsel  it  is  safe 
to  urge  consideration  of  some  defects  and 
vices  which  are  so  general  that  even  those 
of  us  who  may  personally  be  innocent  of 
them  share  as  Americans  in  the  censure  and 
retributions  they  involve.  There  is  that 
obnoxious  American  habit  of  inopportune 
expectoration.  We  ought  all  to  be  ashamed 
of  the  way  we  spit  about  everywhere,  on 
the  sidewalks,  in  the  street-cars,  alone  and 
in  company,  in  season  (the  catarrhal  sea 
son)  and  out,  defiling  the  foot-stool,  making 
ourselves  an  offence  to  people  of  nicer  habits, 
and  especially  to  ladies  who  have  the  mis- 
205 


Lucid    Intervals 


fortune  to  pick  up  our  trail.  If  by  grace 
of  training  or  decent  intentions  we  do  not 
ourselves  spit  about,  we  should  be  duly 
ashamed  of  our  fellows  who  do,  and  repent 
of  their  unconscious  boorishness,  and  try 
to  bring  them  to  the  knowledge  and  prac 
tice  of  better  manners. 

Let  us  repent,  too,  of  our  proneness  to  gos 
sip  about  our  neighbors,  to  pry  into  their 
concerns,  to  tell  malicious,  untruthful,  and 
sensational  stories  about  them,  to  speak  in 
accurately  on  all  subjects,  to  invent  wrongs 
for  poor  men  and  crimes  for  rich,  and  by 
dwelling  on  such  wrongs  which  do  not  ex 
ist,  and  such  crimes  which  have  not  been 
committed,  to  continually  stir  up  the  poor 
to  hate  the  rich  and  the  rich  to  distrust  the 
poor.  And  if  by  the  favor  of  Providence  such 
light  has  been  vouchsafed  to  us  that  we  are 
able,  as  individuals,  to  keep  clear  of  these 
abominable  offences,  let  us  still  mortify  our 
flesh  and  pile  dust  on  our  heads  because 
that  we  are  members  of  a  community  in 
which  these  misdeeds  are  conspicuously 
rife,  and  in  which  newspapers  which  com 
mit  them  by  wholesale,  daily  and  hourly, 
206 


Times   and    Seasons 


flourish  with  exceeding  noise,  and  appar 
ently  find  them  gainful  and  expedient. 

Let  us  take  thought,  too,  of  the  great  cor 
porations  organized  for  important  public 
service,  and  incidentally  for  the  profitable 
transaction  of  business,  considering  on  the 
one  hand  how  prone  they  are  to  forget  their 
obligations  as  creatures  of  the  public  in  their 
greed  for  profit,  and  on  the  other  how  la 
mentably  they  are  harried  by  legislatures, 
boards,  and  councils,  and  by  bosses  small 
and  great,  who,  under  pretence  of  compel 
ling  them  to  the  proper  performance  of  their 
duties,  keep  them  under  constant  tribute, 
and  drive  them  to  become,  in  self-defence,  a 
source  of  direful  and  demoralizing  corrup 
tion.  Let  us  acknowledge  it,  too,  as  a  sin  in 
which,  however  unwillingly,  we  share,  that 
our  rulers,  who  are  most  powerful  and  most 
highly  honored,  are  too  apt  to  be  such  as 
honor  corrupt  men,  and  are  either  them 
selves  smirched  with  dishonesty,  or  owe 
their  advancement  to  a  carefully  matured 
system  which  rests  on  the  perversion  of 
power  and  the  misuse  of  opportunity. 

If  we  have  leisure  to  repent  of  more  things, 
207 


Lucid  Intervals 


there  are  plenty  that  may  engage  us  :  our 
jingoes ;  our  too  general  inability  to  get  our 
ablest  and  most  upright  men  into  public  of 
fice  ;  the  danger  to  which  we  expose  our 
selves  by  sending  so  many  unfit  men  to 
congress,  and  especially  to  the  senate ;  our 
too  great  haste  to  be  rich ;  our  defective 
courtesy  as  a  people ;  our  lazy  indifference 
to  our  rights,  and  still  greater  indifference 
to  our  duties. 

Peccavimus !  peccavimus,  O  Domine !  We 
are  miserable  sinners  without  a  doubt,  and 
not  even  the  knowledge  that  all  our  contem 
poraries  now  on  earth  are  sinners  also  should 
excuse  us  from  reckoning  up  our  shortcom 
ings,  and  struggling  after  such  amendment 
as  sincere  contrition  and  diligent  effort  may 
enable  us  to  attain. 

If  we  have  duly  taken  thought  of  our  na 
tional  and  personal  shortcomings,  it  is  no 
Easter  more  than  reasonable  that  we 
should  cheer  up  a  little  at  Easter,  and  see  if 
the  subject  of  our  contemplations  has  not 
somewhere  a  bright  side.  There  must  be 
some  hopeful  tokens  that  we  may  dwell 
upon. 

208 


Times    and   Seasons 


Surely  we  ought  to  get  some  good  results 
from  all  the  repentance  we  have  done  and 
that  has  been  done  for  us.  Think  of  the 
suits  upon  suits  of  sackcloth  that  have  been 
worn  out  in  consequence  of  our  sins.  It  used 
to  be  a  tradition  that  the  Americans  were 
boastful,  but  can  any  one  pretend  that  our 
hearts  are  haughty  or  our  eyes  lofty  any 
more  ?  Is  any  person's  observation  so  im 
perfect  that  he  has  not  discerned  our  increas 
ing  humility  ?  Who  on  earth  thinks  smaller 
potatoes  of  us  than  we  do  of  ourselves  ? 
Our  peccavimuses  assail  the  skies.  Hear 
us,  Good  Lord !  Do  we  dissemble  our 
faults  ?  Is  there  anything  that  we  ought 
to  have  done  that  we  do  not  claim  to  have 
neglected  ?  Is  there  anything  that  we 
ought  not  to  have  done  that  we  have  not 
added  to  our  tale  of  transgressions  ?  Do  any 
of  our  critics  speak  as  ill  of  our  rulers,  our 
legislators,  our  municipal  governments,  our 
foreign  policies,  our  trusts,  our  bosses,  our 
personal  habits,  our  tastes,  and  our  news 
papers  as  we  do  ?  Surely  there  is  hope  for  a 
people  capable  of  the  development  of  such  a 
fine  gift  of  self -depreciation  as  ours.  We 
o  209 


Lucid    Intervals 


cannot  blind  even  ourselves  to  the  fact  that 
our  country  is  big,  and  that  there  are  a  lot  of 
active  people  in  it,  who  are  singularly  apt 
in  making  things  that  other  people  want 
and  are  willing  to  pay  for.  We  know  that 
we  have  got  rich  fast,  and  we  expect  pres 
ently  to  go  on  and  get  richer,  but  our  con 
sciences,  made  sensitive  by  exhortation,  no 
longer  permit  us  to  offset  our  moral  or  in 
tellectual  deficiencies  by  material  acquire 
ments. 

Now,  if  we  may,  let  us  perk  up  a  little. 
Blind  optimism  is  stupid,  and  consequently 
bad  for  us;  but  there  is  no  harm  in  our 
looking  around  and  trying  to  take  courage. 
After  all,  the  Turks  are  less  civilized  than 
we,  and  their  government  in  Europe  is  prob 
ably  nearer  its  end  than  ours  here.  Russia 
has  an  enormous  future,  but  meanwhile  her 
people  are  semi-barbarous,  and  her  govern 
ment  a  despotism.  Germany  has  rather  a 
stifling  government,  and  an  emperor  who  is 
amusing  when  he  is  four  thousand  miles  off. 
Our  Germans  love  their  fatherland  and  keep 
out  of  it.  The  French  are  dying  of  thrift,  so 
they  say ;  the  Italians  are  poor,  the  Span- 

210 


Times   and    Seasons 


ish  proud,  and  neither  of  them  prosperous 
just  now.  As  for  the  English,  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  berates  them  as  cordially  as  Mr,  God- 
kin  does  the  Americans.  They  abuse  one 
another,  and  disparage  everything  that  per 
tains  to  them  almost  as  fervently  as  we 
abuse  our  concerns  here,  and  though  it  must 
therefore  be  considered  that  they  are  in  a 
hopeful  state,  they  are  still  far  from  being 
perfected. 

We  are  sinners,  but  let  us  take  some  com 
fort  in  the  hope  that  we  have  found  our 
selves  out,  and  some  more  in  the  suspicion, 
if  we  may  venture  to  trust  it,  that  our  de 
ficiencies  are  more  glaring  when  contrasted 
with  our  own  ideals  than  when  compared 
with  the  defects  of  our  neighbors.  A  state 
of  conspicuous  virtue  is  uncomfortable,  be 
cause  it  is  almost  certain  to  breed  pride,  and 
pride  paves  the  way  to  a  collapse ;  but  to  be 
under  conviction  of  sin  and  eager  for  amend 
ment  is  one  of  the  hopefullest  conditions 
known,  and  one  of  the  safest  to  rejoice  in. 
Let  us,  then,  as  Easter  recurs  and  brings 
back  spring,  be  humbly  thankful  that  we 
have  a  good  lot  of  repentance  in  stock  and 

211 


Lucid   Intervals 


more  making,  from  which,  when  duly  sown 
with  the  seeds  of  experience,  we  may  hope  to 
gather  a  meet  and  profitable  crop. 

There  are  great  merits  about  Easter  as  an 
annual  feast-day.  For  one  thing,  it  is  easy, 
and  not  overburdened  with  material  ob 
servances.  It  has  some  of  the  joyousness 
of  Christmas  about  it,  without  any  draw 
backs  in  the  way  of  miscellaneous  gift- 
giving  and  laborious  provision  of  gayeties. 
What  Easter  says  to  us  is  :  "  Put  on  your 
best  clothes,  think  your  best  thoughts,  and 
come  out  and  be  as  good  and  as  happy  as 
you  can.  The  Lord  of  Christendom  is  risen ; 
the  spring  is  coming  back;  life  begins 
again  in  the  fields  and  parks  and  gardens. 
Let  us  be  grateful  to  our  Maker  for  life ;  let 
us  rejoice  in  the  present  all  we  honestly  can, 
and  take  as  hopeful  a  view  of  the  future  as 
common-sense  permits." 

These  are  pleasant  thoughts  that  Easter 
offers  to  the  hospitality  of  our  minds.  By 
all  means  let  us  harbor  them.  We  ought  to 
be  pious-minded  all  the  year  round,  but 
especially  at  Easter.  Now,  as  the  buds  be 
gin  to  swell  and  the  grass  to  be  green  again, 

212 


Times   and    Seasons 


we  see  everywhere  work  being  done  for  us, 
in  which,  to  be  sure,  we  may  have  a  hand, 
but  of  which  by  far  the  greater  part  is  inde 
pendent  of  our  efforts.  We  may  cut  the 
grass  and  trim  its  borders,  but  we  don't 
really  make  it  grow.  We  may  trim  the  trees 
and  dig  about  their  roots,  but  the  buds  don't 
swell  because  of  us.  They  will  swell,  any 
way,  and  the  most  our  interposition  may 
accomplish  will  be  to  make  things  progress 
a  little  more  to  our  taste,  and  in  somewhat 
better  accord  with  our  convenience. 

There  is  comfort  for  us  in  these  consider 
ations.  When  we  have  taken  thought  over 
much  about  the  shortcomings  of  mankind, 
it  is  surely  a  solace  to  remember  that,  after 
all,  the  things  that  are  most  indispensably 
important  to  human  life  are  more  or  less 
independent  of  the  labor  and  management 
of  human  beings.  The  good  Lord  has  not 
put  upon  us  the  whole  responsibility  of 
regulating  even  the  little  corners  of  the 
universe  that  we  dwell  in.  The  earth  re 
volves,  the  sun  rises  and  sets,  the  seasons 
recur,  things  grow,  fire  burns,  and  the  rains 
fall  upon  the  earth,  without  any  care  or 
213 


Lucid    Intervals 


planning  on  our  part.  Our  dwelling-place 
is  provided  ;  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  make 
ourselves  fit  to  live  in  it. 

Come!  brethren,  come!  Let  us  renew  our 
hopes,  and  resolve  afresh  to  live  more  fully 
up  to  our  environment  and  our  chances. 
It  is  a  world  of  such  delightful  possibilities  ! 
It  is  so  fair  to  look  at;  it  smells  so  sweet; 
its  airs,  as  the  spring  gets  into  them,  are  so 
gentle  and  reassuring  !  Let  us  hope  again 
that  mankind  is  growing  fitter  to  adorn  so 
admirable  a  setting  ;  that  grace  abounds 
somewhat  more  from  year  to  year ;  that  the 
nations  progress  in  appreciation  of  the 
foolishness  of  wars  ;  and  that  individual 
humans,  like  you  and  me,  grow  more  and 
more  practical  in  our  realization  that  we 
must  be  good  if  we  would  hope  to  be  happy, 
and  that  we  are  all  so  interdependent  that 
the  goodness  and  happiness  of  all  is  the  per 
sonal  concern  of  each.  We  who  are  here — 
who  don't  know  where  we  came  from  ;  who 
go,  who  knows  where  to — what  more  do  we 
know  than  that  this  is  our  chance  at  earth ; 
our  chance  to  adorn  creation ;  our  chance  to 
prove  that  we  are  in  some  measure  fit  to  live 
214 


Times   and   Seasons 


here,  and  suited,  perhaps,  to  be  eventually 
transplanted  ? 

Out,  then,  in  our  best  gear,  and  in  our 
best  and  gentlest  spirits,  in  honor  of  the  day 
of  risen  hopes;  mindful  that  the  world  is 
good,  and  happy  in  adorning  it ;  but  mind 
ful,  too,  that  no  world  can  really  be  good 
except  for  good  people — for  men  who  are 
faithful,  for  women  who  are  kind,  for  true 
people  who  are  fit  to  live. 

The  first  of  May  is  not  moving  day  for 
every  one  who  moves.  More  movers  move 
Moving  Day  nowadays  in  October;  but  tra 
dition  does  not  yield  immediately  to  custom, 
and  traditionally  the  first  of  May  is  moving 
day.  When  people  in  the  country  move,  it  is 
for  a  serious  reason  :  because  the  bottom  has 
fallen  out  of  something  ;  because  the  mort- 


MOVING   DAY 


gage  has  been  foreclosed  at  last;   because 

the  proportion  between  births  and  funerals 

in  the  family  has  gone  wrong ;  or  because 

2I5 


Lucid    Intervals 


the  rising  generation  thinks  it  has  noticed 
that  folks  who  live  in  town  have  more  money 
to  spend  and  fewer  chores  to  attend  to  than 
folks  who  live  in  the  country.  People  who 
move  for  reasons  of  that  sort  are  as  likely  to 
start  at  one  time  as  another.  What  fixes 
the  date  for  them  is  an  offer  for  the  farm. 
The  contemporary  May-day,  garnished  with 
moving-vans,  is  a  city  affair.  - 

Some  degree  of  restlessness  is  an  inevi 
table  incident  of  spring.  People  want  to  do 
something  different  and  have  some  new 
sensations.  In  the  country  there  are  changes 
constantly  under  observation  that  help  to 
appease  this  desire.  The  roads  are  tre 
mendously  muddy,  then  they  dry  up  a  bit ; 
green  things  begin  to  show ;  brown  earth, 
as  the  snow  leaves  it  finally  bare,  gives  out 
an  odor  which  is  sweet  in  human  nostrils ; 
daily  events  follow ;  a  warm  rain  melts  the 
drifts  away  and  turns  the  grass  from  brown 
to  green ;  the  buds  swell,  the  pussy-willows 
show  fur;  flowers  that  bloom  on  the  edge 
of  the  snow  come  out ;  bulbs  make  demon 
stration  ;  the  pink  tips  of  peonies  push  up 
through  the  wet  leaves  that  have  covered 
216 


Times   and    Seasons 


them;  daisies  pop  out  unexpectedly,  and 
the  first  one  knows  there  is  a  dandelion  in 
bloom.  All  these  little  incidents  catch  the 
observer's  attention  and  help  to  pacify  him. 
A  little  change  of  some  sort  is  brought  to  his 
door  every  morning.  He  has  only  to  stay 
where  he  is  and  let  variety  come  to  him. 

But  an  urban  environment  is  incapable 
of  so  many  modifications.  To  be  sure, 
an  enormous  crop  of  spinning  bicycles 
rushes  into  ready-made  bloom  the  first 
spring  day,  and  the  parks  grow  green  and 
lovely,  and  the  girls'  new  hats  make  a 
difference,  and  the  flower-store  windows  are 
harder  than  ever  to  pass  by ;  but  somehow 
these  differences  do  not  bring  repose  to  the 
soul  of  the  man  who  is  a  real  man,  or  make 
him  satisfied  to  stay  where  he  is.  Some 
vexatious  instinct  or  other  gets  to  work  in 
him.  He  feels  the  need  of  putting  in  a  crop 
of  some  sort,  or  of  going  fishing — of  doing 
something  quite  different  from  what  he  has 
done  all  winter.  Usually  he  can't.  It  is  too 
soon  for  a  vacation.  The  town  is  not  hot 
nor  nearly  ripe  to  be  abandoned.  If  his  rest 
lessness  festers  in  him,  and  if  he  has  lived 
217 


Lucid   Intervals 


where  he  happens  to  be  living  long  enough 
to  appreciate  all  the  disadvantages  of  it,  and 
if  his  wife  knows  of  some  other  lair  which 
seems  alluring  and  the  perils  of  which  are 
untested,  it  is  possible  that  if  his  lease  is  up 
he  may  move. 

Happily  for  the  stability  of  families,  there 
is  a  good  deal  to  keep  him  where  he  is. 
There  is  the  vis  inertia,  for  one  thing,  always 
particularly  strong  in  the  spring;  nearly 
strong  enough,  indeed,  to  offset  the  desire  to 
do  something  different.  And  then  there  is 
experience.  People  who  have  moved  before 
and  have  not  bettered  themselves  are  apt  to 
be  chary  of  swapping  the  ills  they  know, 
and  folks  who  have  bettered  themselves  are 
usually  content  to  stay  bettered.  And  be 
sides,  there  are  leases ;  and  all  leases  do  not 
expire  in  May.  They  are  more  apt  in  these 
days  to  run  out  in  October,  a  change  which, 
no  doubt,  is  largely  due  to  the  desire  of 
thoughtful  people,  landlords  as  well  as 
tenants,  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
vagrant  influences  of  spring-time.  If  ten 
ants  move  in  May  it  may  be  the  result  of  an 
impulse  born  of  a  sniff  of  unruly  air  late  in 
218 


Times   and   Seasons 


March.  But  if  the  lease  does  not  expire  in 
May,  one's  March  impulses  must  be  barren 
of  results,  and  the  move,  if  it  does  come,  will 
come  in  October,  and  have  serious,  sober 
reasons  and  purposes  back  of  it. 

A  restriction  on  vagrancy  that  is  even 
more  effectual  than  an  October  lease  is  to 
own  one's  house.  People  who  own  their 
houses  are  like  bugs  skewered  by  pins  and 
fastened  to  the  wall — they  are  permanent. 
The  condition  of  their  existence  saves  them 
from  themselves,  but  it  limits  the  scope  of 
their  plans.  It  is  almost  too  permanent  a 
condition  for  this  world.  Property  collects 
dreadfully  in  a  house  that  one  owns,  but 
people  who  move  often  keep  their  accumula 
tions  within  bounds. 

But,  after  all,  moving  is  a  makeshift  and 
a  poor  one,  and  to  move  merely  to  satisfy  a 
vagrant  instinct  is  like  burning  a  house 
down  to  roast  a  pig.  The  true  way  is  to 
have  several  houses,  variously  situated, 
and  to  go  from  one  to  another  as  nature 
directs.  It  is  an  arrangement  which  very 
many  of  our  contemporaries  are  able  to 
make,  the  chief  difficulty  about  it  being  that 
219 


Lucid  Intervals 


it  necessitates  the  possession  of  a  more  or 
less  complete  set  of  money,  and  that  is 
something  the  common  run  of  us  will  never 
have. 

After  all,  there  is  really  no  dull  season  in 
all  the  year ;  for  what  is  the  dull  season  for 
The  Dog  one  lot  of  people  is  the  busy  sea- 
Day8  son  for  another,  and  the  dullest 
month  in  town  is  the  liveliest  in  the  country. 
Take  the  very  dog  days,  when  advertising  is 
slack  in  the  newspapers,  and  no  lawyer  who 
respects  himself  goes  near  his  office,  when 
the  dressmakers  fold  their  hands  in  their 
laps,  and  water  runs  low  in  the  streams, 
and  the  mills  shut  down  or  shorten  time. 
It  seems  a  dead  month  to  the  superficial 
observer,  but  there  is  some  sort  of  harvest 
going  on  in  most  parts  of  the  country  : 
builders  are  building,  architects  are  look 
ing  after  them  more  or  less,  factories  are 
hustling  to  get  their  fall  orders  rilled  out. 
the  excursion  business  is  at  its  height  on 
the  railroads,  and,  this  year,  the  great  na 
tional  industry  of  electing  a  new  President 
is  beginning  to  get  under  way.  August 
is  a  busy  month,  after  all.  If  the  exigen- 
220 


Times   and   Seasons 


cies  of  the  calendar  demanded  that  we 
should  spare  it  now  and  then  out  of  the 
year,  we  should  come  to  realize  its  value, 


"THE  DOG  DAYS" 

and  think  of  it  with  greater  respect.  What, 
for  one  thing,  would  courtship  do  without 
it  ?  Courtship  requires  some  leisure  and 
a  reasonable  degree  of  propinquity.  In 
August,  vacations  abound,  and  in  town 
hours  of  labor  are  short  for  many  of  those 
who  cannot  get  away ;  so  that  young  men 
and  maidens  meet  for  longer  periods  and 
under  circumstances  less  adapted  to  dis 
tract  their  minds  from  one  another  than  at 
other  times.  Courtship  is  the  natural  in 
cident  of  holidays,  between  the  ages  of 
eighteen  and  twenty-five.  After  that,  sum 
mer  habits  begin  to  grow  fixed,  matri 
monial  purposes  begin  to  grow  more  in 
telligent  and  less  sentimental,  and  possible 
partners  who  have  passed  their  twenty-fifth 

221 


Lucid  Intervals 


year  without  becoming  engaged  are  liable 
to  pursue  detached  courses  for  several  years 
longer,  until  they  are  actually  ready  to 
marry,  and  can  see  their  way  to  the  keep 
ing  of  a  house.  The  late  Senator  Conklirg 
once  began  a  famous  political  speech  with 
an  allusion  to  the  experience  of  a  certain 
old  woman,  who  said  that  she  had  found 
that  when  she  lived  through  the  month  of 
February  she  always  lived  through  the 
rest  of  the  year.  It  would  be  over-rash  to 
assure  the  parents  of  marriageable  chil 
dren  that  if  their  offspring  get  through 
the  month  of  August  unentangled  they 
are  proof  for  another  year  against  an  un 
suitable  match.  Young  people  do  fall  in 
love  in  other  months  than  August ;  but, 
still,  August  is  a  dangerous  time,  and 
should  be  planned  for  with  discretion  by 
heads  of  families  who  wish  that  the  alli 
ances  of  their  children  should  be  to  their 
taste.  The  details  of  their  precautions 
must  be  left  to  themselves,  but  of  course 
they  will  bear  in  mind  that  absence  does 
not  make  the  heart  grow  fonder,  except, 
when  it  follows  a  more  or  less  continuous 
222 


Times    and   Seasons 


presence;  and  that  it  is  a  much  simpler 
matter  to  avert  an  entanglement  by  dodg 
ing  it  before  hand  than  by  nip 
ping  it  after  it  has  gone  even  so 
far  as  to  be  in  the  bud.  Fortu 
nate  are  those  parents  who  have 
grown  children  of  such  discrim 
ination  that  they 
can  be  trusted  to 
choose  wisely  for 
themselves.  Au 
gust  need  have  no 
anxieties  for  them, 
and  all  their  care 
will  be  to  provide 
a  proper  field  for  a 
serene  capacity  for 
judicious  selection 
to  accomplish  its 
perfect  work. 

When  the  Presi 
dent    proclaims   to  ,.AUGUST  IS  A  DANGEROUS  TIME» 
us,  as  he  does  every 

Thanksgiving  year,  that  Thanksgiving  is  at 

hand,  and  that  it  behooves  us   to  observe 

it,  he  gives  us  reasons  why  our  hearts  should 

223 


Lucid  Intervals 


be  grateful  and  our  spirits  reverent.  The 
crops  have  been  good,  he  says,  and  work 
has  been  plenty,  we  have  been  prospered  and 
have  grown  richer ;  pestilence  has  not  vex 
ed  us ;  a  fair  degree  of  success  has  attended 
our  aims  ;  we  have  been  able  to  perform  in 
good  measure  what  has  seemed  to  us  to  be 
our  national  duty,  and  our  credit  as  a  peo 
ple  stands  high  among  the  nations  of  the 
world.  These  are  all  sound  reasons  for 
thankfulness,  but  they  have  need  to  be  sup 
plemented,  if,  as  individuals,  we  are  to  bring 
to  Thanksgiving  all  the  feelings  and  senti 
ments  that  it  ought  to  excite.  To  be  thank 
ful  for  health  and  prosperity,  if  we  happen 
to  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  those  blessings,  is 
reasonable  and  right,  but  it  is  not  enough. 
We  should  go  deeper  than  that,  and  consid 
ering  what  is  the  true  purpose  of  our  stay 
on  earth,  should  be  thankful  for  every  ex 
perience  that  promises  to  make  for  that  pur 
pose's  most  complete  fulfilment.  For  crush 
ing  blows  and  devastating  bereavements  it 
is  not  in  us  to  be  thankful,  and  we  are  apt 
to  verge  on  hypocrisy,  or  on  hysterics,  if 
we  attempt  it.  It  is  enough,  surely,  if  we 
224 


Times   and   Seasons 


endure  such  distresses  with  fortitude  and 
what  tranquillity  we  may.  There  are  such 
things  as  disasters,  and  when  they  befall 
there  is  no  occasion  for  us  to  try  to  be  thank 
ful  for  them.  But  by  no  means  all  that  dis 
appoints  our  hopes  and  thwarts  our  wishes 
is  disastrous.  A  great  deal  that  troubles  us 
turns  out  in  the  end  to  be  for  our  good.  Dis 
tasteful  tasks  that  we  are  constrained  to  ex 
ecute  may  prove  unexpectedly  wholesome 
and  profitable  to  us.  Losses  and  setbacks 
which  try  us  sorely  may  rouse  us  from  dan 
gerous  ease  and  drive  us  into  beneficent  ac 
tivity.  Which  of  us  that  has  lived  long 
enough  and  well  enough  to  compass  any 
measure  of  true  success,  but  can  look  back 
to  trials  and  reverses  which  have  seemed  in 
the  end  to  be  the  very  making  of  him.  Who 
can  look  about  and  not  see  blight,  distor 
tion,  and  disappointment  that  are  traceable 
to  prosperity  too  easily  won,  or  to  some 
quip  of  fortune  which  seemed  when  it  came 
to  be  the  acme  of  good-luck?  The  wisest 
of  us  cannot  see  far  into  the  future,  nor  dis 
cern  remote  results.  While  we  are  trying 
to  be  thankful  we  shall  do  well  to  be  thank- 
p  225 


Lucid  Intervals 


f ul  not  only  for  what  we  have  received  and 
for  what  we  have  been  spared,  but  for  much 
that  has  been  denied  us.  So  many  things 
we  want  that  would  not  be  good  for  us  if  we 
got  them  !  Wanting  them  may  be  well 
enough,  for  every  lawful  want  is  a  spur  and 
helps  to  keep  us  moving,  but  attainment  is 
another  matter.  So  much  the  better  for  us 
if,  while  we  try  hard,  and  keep  trying,  to  get 
what  we  want,  we  are  pious-minded  enough 
to  be  thankful  for  what  we  get,  even  though 
it  falls  short  of  our  expectations. 

The  blessings  we  are  used  to  become  so 
much  the  habit  of  our  lives  that  we  are  apt 
to  take  them  for  granted  and  to  fail  to  be 
stirred  by  them  to  any  posit '.ve  emotion  of 
thankfulness.  There  are  those  who,  ever 
mindful  of  the  unequal  measure  in  which 
privilege,  opportunity,  and  all  material 
goods  are  distributed  in  this  wrorld,  are 
always  consciously  grateful  for  the  or 
dinary,  every-day  comforts  —  for  food  and 
shelter  and  decent  surroundings  and  a 
peaceful  life.  But  most  of  us,  differently 
constructed,  are  prone  to  consider  that  all  we 
are  used  to  have  is  ours  by  a  natural  right, 
226 


Times   and   Seasons 


and  that  on  the  whole  it  is  rather  a  hardship 
that  we  cannot  contrive  to  have  an  ever-in 
creasing  share  of  sugar-plums  allotted  to  us. 
We  that  are  of  that  disposition  must  try  at 
Thanksgiving  to  come  to  a  fuller  apprecia 
tion  of  our  more  recondite  blessings,  as  well 
as  of  those  which  we  accept  as  matters  of 
course.  As  Riley  puts  it  in  his  Thanksgiv 
ing  poem : 

"  Let  us  be  thankful,  thankful  for  the  prayers 

Whose  gracious  answers  were  long,  long  delayed, 
That  they  might  fall  upon  us  unawares, 
And  bless  us,  as  in  greater  need  we  prayed." 

What  do  we  want  most  ?  To  be  good  peo 
ple  according  to  our  lights  and  our  abilities; 
to  do  right;  to  grow  in  grace;  to  develop  char 
acter  and  strength  and  unselfishness ;  to  love 
and  to  be  loved,  and  as  rar  as  lies  in  us  to  pro 
mote  righteousness  on  the  earth.  These  as 
pirations  are  not  too  lofty  for  us.  The  goal 
they  point  to  is  really  that  towards  which 
we  would  direct  our  courses.  Nearly  all  of 
us  are  full  of  selfish  desires  ;  we  want  more 
things,  more  money,  more  fame,  more  of 
what  we  call  the  good  things  of  life.  But, 
227 


Lucid  Intervals 


after  all,  imperfect  as  we  are,  and  conflict 
ing  as  our  various  aspirations  may  be,  few 
of  us  would  deliberately  and  consciously 
barter  spiritual  and  intellectual  valuables 
for  material  ones.  We  want  what  is  justly 
our  due,  but  if  greediness  and  harsh  exac 
tions  are  the  price  of  riches,  we  would  rather 
be  less  rich ;  if  self-seeking  and  egotism  are 
the  price  of  fame,  we  would  rather  continue 
somewhat  obscure.  In  so  far  as  our  scruples 
are  sound  and  well  founded,  we  hold  them  to 
be  beyond  price,  and  would  not  deliberately 
sacrifice  them  for  apparent  advancement. 
We  are  wise  in  these  preferences,  for  what 
we  are  after  is  not  so  much  the  means  to  buy 
happiness  as  happiness  itself,  and  the  basis 
of  that,  we  know,  is  the  love  and  content 
ment  which  dwell  in  a  clean  heart.  What  we 
have  reason  to  fear  is  not  that  we  shall  con 
sciously  choose  the  baser  part;  it  is  the 
thin  end  of  the  wedge  which  in  time  might 
separate  us  from  our  ideals.  Let  us  be 
thankful,  then,  for  all  the  right  choices  we 
make  when  we  have  to  choose;  for  all  the 
unseen  influences  that  help  us  to  choose 
right ;  for  whatever  withholds  us,  or  diverts 
228 


Times   and   Seasons 


us  from  a  course  that  is  not  our  true  course ; 
for  any  denial  of  apparent  advantage  or 
present  ease  which  constrains  us  towards 
the  fulfilment  of  a  nobler  destiny. 

Adam  and  Eve  had  no  occasion  to  keep 
Christmas  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  we 

Christmas  have  no  record  of  what  Christ 
mas  in  a  pure  state  of  nature  is  like. 
When  a  pure  state  of  nature  prevailed  on 
this  earth  there  was  no  Christmas.  That 
was  an  after-thought,  prompted  and  made 
necessary  maybe  by  the  exceeding  preva 
lence  of  hard  work,  and  the  need  of  sav 
ing  out  little  stretches  of  time  here  and  there 
to  give  folks  a  chance  to  forget  all  that 
about  living  by  the  sweat  of  their  brows, 
and  let  them  imagine  for  a  few  blessed 
hours  that  this  world  is  really  a  place 
to  live  in,  and  not,  as  we  all  know  it  is,  a 
place  to  work  in,  with  breathing  spells. 
The  intention  was  good,  and  the  result  is 
admirable,  and  we  all  admire  and  cherish 
it,  but,  dear  me !  we  don't  get  even  Christmas 
without  working  for  it.  It  doesn't  grow  ; 
it  has  to  be  made.  In  thousands  and  thou 
sands  of  homes  our  American  Christmas 
229 


Lucid  Intervals 


has  been  making  for  weeks — in  some  of  them 
for  months — past.  As  long  ago  as  Horse- 
Show  week  Madam  From -out -of -Town, 
walking  down  Fifth  Avenue  with  her  eyes 
fixed  in  an  intense  oblivion  on  the  shop 
windows  admitted  to  the  acquaintance  who 
roused  her  with  his  greeting  that  her  whole 
mind  was  bent  on  Christmas  presents  and 
what  to  buy  for  whom.  Forehanded  women 
were  embroidering  everything  from  shoe- 
bags  to  table  embellishments,  as  long  ago 
as  last  spring.  Think  what  they  have 
sewed  into  their  Christmas  offerings — their 
summer  plans,  their  summer  meditations, 
designs  for  children's  winter  clothes,  econo 
mies,  servant  problems,  literature,  gossip — 
everything  that  runs  through  the  head  of  the 
contemporary  dame  whose  brain  keeps 
equal  pace  with  her  fingers  !  And  then  the 
Christmas  money  has  had  to  be  earned,  the 
Christmas  turkeys  fattened,  and  the  cran 
berries  bogged  and  ripened  and  gathered ; 
all  the  Christmas  books  have  had  to  be 
planned  long,  long  ahead,  all  the  stories  and 
pictures  fabricated  and  brought  to  market, 
all  the  toys  invented  and  made,  all  plans  of 
230 


Times    and   Seasons 


folks  who  are  responsible  for  Sunday- 
schools  and  every  kind  of  charity  to  be  per 
fected  and  put  in  the  way  of  accomplish 
ment.  Work  !  An  enormous  labor,  and 
the  better  part  of  it  done  by  women.  It  is  not 
worth  saying  that  there  wouldn't  be  any 
Christmas  except  for  women,  for  of  course 
without  women  there  wouldn't  be  anything 
in  this  world  worth  talking  about  except 
the  prospect  of  getting  away.  Still,  wom 
an's  energy  and  the  immense  value  of  her 
co-operation  in  making  the  wheels  of  life 
revolve  are  never  more  conspicuous  than 
in  everything  that  pertains  to  Christmas. 
She  makes  pretty  much  all  the  Christmas 
plans,  makes  all  the  gifts  except  the  in 
glorious  but  indispensable  sort  which  are 
bought  in  shops,  invites  all  the  company, 
cooks  most  of  the  dinners,  and  by  keeping 
men  busy  carrying  out  her  instructions  con 
trives  to  make  even  them  imagine  that 
Christmas  is  partly  their  doing,  and  that 
they  have  earned  the  satisfactions  that  it 
yields  to  them.  With  enough  women  in 
one's  family,  it  might  even  be  possible  to 
have  some  sort  of  a  Christmas  without 
231 


Lucid  Intervals 


children.  There  would  be  gifts  exchanged 
and  a  conscientious  effort  to  improve  the 
occasion,  whereas  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of 
isolated  men  attempting  more  of  a  celebra 
tion  than  a  little  more  dinner  than  usual 
and  an  extra  round  of  grog. 

It  is  such  a  busy  world,  and  most  people 
who  keep  their  footing  in  it  find  that  so  en 
grossing  a  task,  that  perhaps  we  ought  not 
to  wonder  that  out  of  sight  is  so  prone  to 
be  out  of  mind.  Christmas  or  not,  those 
whom  we  have  immediately  about  us  will  be 
in  our  minds.  If  there  is  any  warmth  in  us 
they  will  feel  it ;  if  any  light,  it  will  shine 
for  them  ;  but  we  are  improvident  persons 
if  we  are  content  with  that.  The  thrifty 
householder  who  prayed  Heaven  to  look 
after  "me  and  my  wife  and  my  son  John 
and  his  wife  "  was  altogether  too  restricted 
in  his  supplications.  We  ought  to  let  our 
warmth  and  our  light  and  our  love  overflow 
freely  at  Christmas  -  time.  It  is  the  great 
opportunity  the  year  brings  us  to  enlarge 
the  boundaries  of  our  affections,  to  ac 
knowledge  ties  of  kinship,  to  recognize  and 
revive  old  friendships,  and  to  check  the 
232 


Times   and   Seasons 


strong  prevailing  tendency  of  our  time  and 
country  towards  too  strait  an  individualism, 
and  too  little  concern  for  every  one  outside 
of  ourselves  and  our  own  belongings.  We 
are  all  members  one  of  another,  but  too  few 
of  us  realize  it.  That  is  partly  because 
conditions  are  for  so  many  people  in  such  a 
constant  state  of  change.  Families  are 
transplanted,  and  all  their  Christmas  habits 
and  traditions  disturbed.  New  people  surge 
in  everywhere,  especially  in  the  greater 
cities.  Folks  are  excusable  if  they  are 
puzzled  to  know  what  their  particular  Christ 
mas  chances  and  obligations  are.  But 
the  more  change  and  the  more  loosening 
of  old  ties,  the  more  need  of  forming  new 
ones  and  preserving  all  that  is  possible  of 
the  old.  To  have  a  settled  abiding-place 
and  definite  duties  and  privileges,  and  to 
stick  to  the  place  and  perform  the  duties  and 
enjoy  the  privileges,  are  in  many  respects 
an  ideal  condition  in  this  world.  That  is 
the  condition  that  we  think  of  as  character 
istic  of  the  English  villages  or  the  German 
towns,  from  which  so  many  of  our  notions 
of  Christmas-keeping  come.  Just  for  pur- 
233 


Lucid    Intervals 


poses  of  Christmas  we  would  like  all  friends 
to  be  old  friends,  all  neighbors  to  be  neigh 
bors  of  long  standing,  all  places  to  be 
familiar.  We  would  like  to  do  what  we 
have  "always  been  used  to  do,"  provided, 
of  course,  that  that  is  satisfactory  in  retro 
spect.  Any  one  is  excusable  in  being  an  old 
fogy  about  Christmas,  and  wanting  to  have 
a  settled  home  and  belongings,  and  in  miss 
ing  everything  that  was  familiar  and  is 
gone.  If  we  could  have  the  feudal  system 
turned  on  again  for  twenty-four  hours  ev 
ery  year,  and  have  doings  in  the  great  hall 
of  the  castle,  and  wassail  and  boars'  heads, 
yule-logs  and  bear-baiting,  and  the  various 
pleasantries  whereof  the  memory  has  come 
down,  no  doubt  it  would  seem  perfectly  nat 
ural;  and  though  it  might  scandalize  re 
formers,  and  leave  headaches  in  its  wake, 
we  should  doubtless  feel  after  it  as  though 
Christmas  had  really  been  here  and  we  had 
kept  it.  Alas  !  we  have  not  the  advantages 
of  feudal  times.  Yule  -  logs  are  scarce ; 
miscellaneous  wassail  is  unauthorized  and 
frowned  upon ;  bear-baitirg  has  given  place 
to  football,  and  that  is  a  Thanksgiving 
234 


Times    and    Seasons 


observance.  Still,  we  do  our  best.  Though 
less  picturesque  than  our  remote  forebears, 
we  are,  of  course,  a  good  deal  more  com 
fortable.  We  still  have  children,  and  they 
have  stockings  (which  children  did  not 
always  have  five  centuries  ago),  and  though 
fireplaces  are  scarcer  than  they  were,  stock 
ings  may  be  hung  on  a  radiator,  and  are 
often  found  to  have  been  filled  overnight. 
Though  we  are  not  as  closely  moored  to  the 
soil  as  our  ancestors  were  when  they  were 
serfs,  we  do  sometimes  have  settled  houses 
in  which  Christmas  finds  us,  and  when  it 
does  catch  us  in  a  new  place,  still  we  find 
certain  compensations  in  the  modern  anni 
hilation  of  space,  which,  though  it  breaks 
up  families  and  scatters  friends,  makes 
reunions  comparatively  easy  and  com 
munication  very  easy  indeed.  Remember 
the  overladen  letter-carriers  in  Christmas 
week,  and  the  incessant  wagons  of  the  ex 
press  companies  heaped  high  with  parcels  ! 
All  that  testifies  to  the  existence  of  love  that 
defies  separation,  and  of  kindness  stretching 
out  through  space  to  remember  and  remind. 
Only  the  young  really  have  fun;  only 
235 


Lucid   Intervals 


the  young,  and  persons  of  whatever  age 
who  have  managed  to  keep  youth  alive  in 
them.  Older  persons  have  pleasures  and 
satisfactions.  Successes  please  them.  They 
like  to  win;  they  like  to  accomplish  their 
ends,  and  to  make  them  meet,  too,  and 
if  possible  overlap.  They  like  society  and 
conversation,  clothes,  books,  horses,  and 
various  gratifications  of  taste.  They  are 
capable  of  finding  a  good  deal  of  satisfac- 


"ONLY   THE    YOUNG    HAVE    FUN" 

tion  in  Christmas  gifts,  not  only  because 

they  love  the  givers,  but  because  the  things 

given  please  them.     It  is  not  altogether  a 

236 


Times   and   Seasons 


waste  of  effort  to  give  presents  to  adult 
persons.  It  pleases  them  after  a  fashion. 
If  you  have  enough  gifts  to  go  around,  let 
the  grown-ups  have  their  share.  Be  kind  to 
them.  To  become  grown-up  is  the  common 
lot.  Scarcely  any  one  evades  it  satisfac 
torily.  It  has  happened  to  you,  or,  if  not,  it 
will  presently ;  and  for  your  own  protection 
and  in  your  own  interest  you  should  see  that 
grown-ups  have  due  consideration  shown 
them.  Feed  them  pretty  well  on  Christmas 
Day.  They  like  to  be  well  fed ;  you  may 
have  noticed  that.  If  they  have  been  hard- 
worked,  make  it  holiday  for  them,  and  in 
duce  them  to  go  out  and  walk  about  and 
prattle  to  one  another.  But  don't  let  them 
play  too  hard.  That  is  one  of  the  weak 
nesses  of  the  contemporary  grown-ups.  It 
is  the  fashion — a  new  fashion — for  them 
to  play  every  chance  they  get,  and  they  are 
very  apt  to  overdo  it.  If  your  grown-ups 
play  golf,  persuade  them  that  eighteen 
holes  are  plenty  enough  for  Christmas  Day; 
if  they  go  out  on  bicycles,  insist  that  ten 
miles  and  back  is  far  enough.  A  grown-up 
discreetly  managed  is  capable  of  absorbing 
237 


Lucid   Intervals 


a  good  deal  of  Christmas  warmth,  and  of 
radiating  some  of  it  out  again.  But  of 
course  the  real  Christmas  fun  must  be  sup 
plied  by  the  young.  Some  observers  hold 
that  it  has  been  unduly  impressed  upon 
this  generation  that  its  young  people  must 
have  a  good  time.  Ever  so  good  a  thing 
may  be  overdone,  and  excellent  as  the  idea 
of  making  children  happy  is,  there  is  the 
possibility  of  excess  in  it.  But  hardly  at 
Christmas.  It  is  recognized  that  at  that 
season  fun  is  indispensable,  and  that  it  is 
easier  and  more  advantageous  to  grown-ups 
to  get  a  good  part  of  it  vicariously.  There 
is  a  time  for  all  things,  and  the  particular 
time  for  holiday  fun  is  youth.  It  is  interest 
ing,  to  be  sure,  to  shift  the  scenes  and  pull 
the  strings  that  make  the  puppets  move, 
but  it  is  better  sport  to  be  young  enough 
to  sit  out  on  the  other  side  of  the  footlights 
and  see  the  show.  That  is  where  children 
have  the  best  of  it.  They  are  the  audience, 
and  the  grown-ups  are  the  actors,  and  the 
best  reward  the  company  can  ask  is  to  have 
the  audience  thoroughly  pleased  with  the 
show.  Happily  the  audience  is  not  critical. 
238 


Times   and   Seasons 


It  is  eager  to  be  happy,  and  ready  to  make 
the  most  of  every  chance.  It  magnifies 
every  gift,  and  supplements  rudimentary 
facts  with  a  splendid  bounty  of  imagina 
tion.  It  finds  bliss  in  a  book,  joy  in  a  pair  of 
skates,  delight  in  dolls,  and  loves  a  holiday 
for  its  own  sake  and  because  it  is  different. 
To  be  a  boy  at  boarding-school  and  come 
home  for  the  holidays — who  that  has  known 
that  pleasure  ever  forgets  it  ?  To  be  a 
school-girl  and  be  let  out  to  Christmas  dances 
— bless  me,  the  excitement  of  it,  the  delight 
of  it !  There  is  a  deal  of  fun  in  living  before 
the  novelty  of  it  has  worn  off.  There  is 
Christmas  fun  to  be  had  always,  but  grown 
up  people's  fun  is  like  gold  in  quartz,  that 
is  only  come  by  after  hard  work,  while  for 
youth  it  is  like  Klondike  nuggets,  waiting  to 
be  picked  up  out  of  the  loose  gravel. 

If  you  can  have  no  fun  at  all  at  Christ 
mas-time  something's  the  matter.  Look 
to  yourself ;  something  is  amiss  with  you. 
If  it  is  grief,  time  will  deaden  if  it  does  not 
heal  it ;  if  it  is  illness,  please  Heaven,  that 
will  pass  away;  if  it  is  misfortune  and 
the  res  angustae,  from  that,  too,  Time  brings 
239 


Lucid   Intervals 


promise  of  escape  ;  if  you  have  been  at  fault 
and  are  suffering  for  it,  Christmas  is  a  good 
time  to  be  sorry  in  and  to  make  reparation, 
if  that  is  possible,  and  plan  a  new  course. 
But  what  if  you  have  lost  the  capacity  for 
Christmas  happiness  because  you  have 
followed  your  own  ends,  your  own  ease, 
your  own  pleasure  and  profit,  so  long  that 
the  germ  of  the  Christmas  spirit  seems  to 
have  died  out  in  you?  What  if  you  can 
have  no  Christmas  fun  because  you  are  too 
selfish  to  deserve  it  ?  If  that  is  your  case 
it  is  a  very,  very  bad  one,  and  you  ought 
on  no  account  to  sit  still  under  it.  It  is  not 
only  uncomfortable,  but  ominous.  There 
may  or  may  not  be  a  hell  hereafter,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  about  yours.  It  has  come 
to  you  already.  If  you  don't  realize  how 
badly  off  you  are,  the  situation  is  pretty 
desperate,  but  if  you  recognize  at  all  your 
own  predicament,  perhaps  something  may 
be  done  for  you  yet.  Bad  cases  like  yours 
have  been  cured  before  now.  There  was 
Scrooge.  Somehow  or  other  you  must 
manage  to  add  to  some  one's  happiness. 
If  you  are  a  domestic  ogre  and  are  mean 
240 


Times    and   Seasons 


to  your  dependents,  you  must  abate  your 
self.  If  you  have  neglected  every  one  who 
had  a  natural  claim  on  you  until  they  all 
have  passed  out  of  your  life,  you  must  get 
them  back  into  it  again.  If  you  have  pur 
sued  a  policy  of  exclusiveness  until  you 
have  excluded  every  one  who  was  willing 
to  associate  with  you,  you  must  drop  that 
and  try  to  get  back  into  touch  with  human 
ity.  The  whole  Christmas  sentiment  is 
permeated  with  solidarity.  Good-will  to 
men  is  its  only  indispensable  ingredient. 
The  great  business  of  the  season  is  to  cul 
tivate  and  develop  good -will  and  to  give 
evidences  of  it.  That  is  why  some  people 
go  to  church,  and  why  myriads  of  folks 
give  presents  and  exert  themselves  to  make 
Christmas  merry  for  persons  who  are  out  of 
luck  or  short  of  the  ordinary  appliances 
for  merriment.  You  of  the  atrophied  heart 
go  through  the  motions  of  Christmas-keep 
ing  as  well  as  you  can.  Perhaps  if  you  are 
earnest  about  it  a  little  of  the  spirit  of  the 
time  may  come  even  to  you.  Depend  upon 
it,  people  in  general  would  not  take  so  much 
pains  with  Christmas  if  they  were  not  pretty 
Q  241 


Lucid    Intervals 


sure  its  observation  was  a  necessary  exer 
cise.  At  least  once  a  year  we  ought  to  get 
out  of  the  rut  of  drudgery  and  bargaining 
and  competition,  and  make  an  honest  effort 
to  behave  as  though  the  rest  of  mankind 
were  not  our  rivals,  but  our  brethren.  Our 
ability  to  do  that  when  Christmas  comes 
is  a  convenient  indication  of  the  course  we 
have  been  taking  for  the  twelve  months 
previous.  If  we  have  fallen  quite  out  of 
the  habit  of  Christian  conduct  we  won't 
be  able  to  assume  it  successfully  for  one 
day  or  one  week,  but  if  we  can  keep  Christ 
mas  as  we  should,  and  find  the  Christmas 
impulses  alive  and  ready  in  us,  then  we  are 
warranted  in  entertaining  sentiments  of 
modest  hopefulness  about  our  own  spirit 
ual  state,  and  in  trusting  that  when  our 
final  account  is  made  up  the  balance  may 
not  be  irreparably  against  us. 


X 

SOME   NEW   YORK   TYPES 


SOME  NEW  YORK  TYPES- 
SOME  towns  are  interesting  chiefly  be 
cause  of  people  who  are  dead ;  others 
chiefly  because  of  persons  who  are  still 
alive  and  on  exhibition.  Without  dispar 
agement  of  the  amiable,  comely,  and  edi 
fying  Italians  who  are  the  present  inhabi 
tants  of  Rome,  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the 
great  charm  of  the  Eternal  City  is  in  its 
past ;  the  past  of  the  Caesars  and  the  saints, 
of  piety,  and  politics,  and  painters.  Their 
relics  and  their  monuments  are  what  im 
press  the  visitor,  and  if  he  takes  note  of 
living  figures  it  is  only  as  the  actors  in  a 
single  scene  of  a  drama  that  began  long, 

*  For  the  illustrations  in  this  article  we  are  indebted 
to  the  courtesy  of  Collier's  Weekly. 

245 


Lucid    intervals 


long  ago  and  progresses  to  an  issue  that 
no  sure  prophet  has  predicted.  Rome  keeps 
the  present  in  its  proper  place  and  reduces 
the  living  to  their  just  proportions.  They 
do  not  loom  up  big  and  eclipse  history  mere 
ly  because  they  are  in  view  and  still  have 
powers  of  speech  and  locomotion.  New 
York  is  a  town  of  quite  a  different  quality. 
It  does  not  recall  nor  brood ;  it  presents 
and  suggests.  It  has  no  visible  past ;  it 
is  all  here.  It  has  a  certain  majesty,  but 
its  clothes  are  new.  Its  powers  are  still 
waxing  and  the  crises  of  its  history  are  for 
the  most  part  ahead  of  it.  The  streets  and 
the  buildings  that  one  sees  to-day,  and  the 
people  who  live  in  them — they  are  New 
York.  It  is  no  city  of  shadows,  but  pro 
fuse  and  instant  in  actualities. 

It  has  merits,  even  if  they  are  not  the 
merits  of  Rome.  It  is  good  of  its  kind. 
It  is  rich,  crowded,  active,  and  stimulating. 
The  paint  on  the  panorama's  pictures  may 
be  fresh,  but  the  pictures  are  brilliant,  and 
the  philosopher  regards  them  with  a  spec 
ulative  interest  which  is  lively  even  if  some 
what  superficial.  For  various  reasons  the 
246 


Some   New    York    Types 

people  of  a  great  bustling  city  are  more 
interesting  to  observe  than  the  folk  of  a 
smaller  town.  Their  pace  is  quicker ;  they 
offer  greater  contrasts ;  the  conditions  and 
purposes  of  their  existence  are  vastly 
more  perplexing.  In  a  little  city  one  gets 
in  time  to  know  the  faces  and  the  general 
conditions  of  life  so  that  the  visible  popula 
tion  of  the  streets,  though  it  by  no  means 
ceases  to  interest  him,  does  cease  to  stir 
perpetual  speculations  in  his  mind  as  he 
walks  abroad.  But  in  New  York  men's 
knowledge  of  one  another  is  necessarily 
so  much  more  limited  that  in  every  day's 
procession  crowds  of  new  characters  tran 
spire  and  put  their  queries  to  the  eye  as 
they  pass.  Think  of  the  enormous  shift 
ing  population  of  the  city,  contributed  day 
in  and  day  out  by  all  creation  !  You  may 
have  lived  years  in  New  York,  and  yet 
when  there  are  two  or  three  familiar  faces 
in  a  crowded  street-car  it  is  unusual.  Cer 
tain  types,  though,  we  come  in  time  to  recog 
nize  with  more  or  less  accuracy. 

The  most  familiar  of  all,  next  to  the  po 
liceman,    is   the   District   Messenger,    true 
247 


Lucid  Intervals 


servant  of  the  public,  whom  everybody 
somewhat  distrustfully  trusts,  whose  much- 
disparaged  usefulness  we  all  appreciate, 
whose  habits  we  deplore,  and  whose  future 
most  of  us  are  glad  to  leave  in  the  Lord's 
hands.  He  is  an  urchin  of  fourteen  years 
and  upward.  The  common 
schools  have  taught  him  to 
read  and  write  and  to  make 
very  inaccurate  computations 
about  the  cost  of  any  service 
he  may  be  called  to  render. 
He  knows  the  town  and  is 
conversant  with  the  means 
of  public  transportation.  He 
has  all  the  natural  va 
grant  dispositions  of 
boyhood.  He  does  not 
like  to  work.  He  smokes 
cigarettes,  he  loiters,  he 
yearns  for  dimes,  or 
even  nickels;  tops  and  marbles  in  the 
spring  have  the  same  charms  for  him  as 
for  other  boys.  Yet  discipline,  system, 
and  the  expectations  of  society  have  made 
a  useful  and  fairly  trustworthy  tool  of 
248 


MESSENGER    BOY 


Some   New    York    Types 

him.  Milliners  confide  hats  to  him.  Trav 
ellers  trust  him  with  bags,  and  the  con 
fiding  race  of  men  who  wrestle  with  af 
fairs  and  chances  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Wall  Street  put  papers  of  value,  and  even 
money,  in  his  charge.  Most  amazing  of 
all,  timorous  ladies  twice  or  thrice  his  age 
and  weight  call  on  him  to  convoy  them 
when  they  go  out  of  an  evening,  and  sally 
forth  into  the  streets  in  the  late  hours  secure 
in  his  protection.  It  is  not  known  that  any 
women  ever  found  him  a  faithless  escort. 
Letters  that  he  has  undertaken  to  deliver 
have  sometimes  failed  to  arrive ;  he  has 
been  known,  though  infrequently,  to  mis 
lay  valises  and  misappropriate  valuables, 
but  so  far  as  appears  he  may  claim,  as  the 
Cunard  Line  does,  that  he  never  lost  a  pas 
senger. 

Do  you  know  the  local  politician  when 
you  see  him  ?  It  is  hard  to  mistake  him. 
He  differs  from  the  horseman,  the  gambler, 
the  broker,  the  man  of  business,  and  the 
working  -  man.  He  is  able-bodied,  and 
could  have  made  a  working-man  if  supe 
rior  mental  qualifications  had  not  opened 
249 


Lucid  Intervals 


to  him  other  fields  of  action.  Nowadays 
he  prospers  in  his  calling  and  shows  the 
outward  signs  of  it.  His  clothes  are  good ; 
he  is  reasonably  clean  and  newly  shaven, 
and  his  personal  appearance  is  matter  of 
concern  with  him.  He  is  apt  to  smoke  cigars 
in  the  street,  which  is  neither  judicious  nor 
aesthetic;  but  then  the  street  is  one  of  the 
fields  of  his  activity.  Much  of  his  work 
is  there,  and  in  so  far  as  tobacco  stimulates 
his  intellectual  faculties  he  has  as  much 
need  of  it  in  the  street  as  in  the  Democratic 
Club  or  an}^  haven  where  he  comes  to  anchor. 
He  is  a  man  of  energy  and  of  cogency  in 
discourse.  His  interest  in  affairs  seems 
active,  for  he  has  much  to  say  and  many 
to  say  it  to.  You  find  him  often  in  discus 
sion,  at  times  with  men  like  himself,  often 
with  persons  palpably  and  consciously  his 
inferiors,  who  impart  a  certain  deference  to 
their  communications  with  him.  One  mark 
by  which  you  may  know  him  is  that  as  you 
look  him  over  he  seems  to  you  to  be  better 
dressed  and  more  prosperous  than  his  hands 
and  his  physiognomy  warrant.  You  won 
der  by  what  sort  of  a  ladder  such  a  person 
250 


Some    New    York    Types 

climbed,  and  by  a  swift  process  of  elimina 
tion  the  query  resolves  itself  into  specula 
tions  whether  he  is  something  greater  or  less 
than  a  district  leader. 

And  as  to  this  matter  of  clothes,  and  in 
particular  of  men's  clothes.  The  politician's 
clothes  strike  you  as  surprisingly  good  for 
the  man  inside  of  them,  but  don't  under 
stand  that  as  a  disparagement  of  the  man. 
Some  of  the  most  objectionable  men  you 
see  are  most  unobjectionably  arrayed — 
much  better  than  the  politician — but  their 
clothes  don't  at  all  surprise  you.  The 
clothes  fit  the  character  as  well  as  the  per 
son,  and  the  character  is  one  that  abounds 
in  New  York,  the  man  who  has  money  or  is 
able  to  get  it  in  quantities,  and  who  bears 
the  marks  of  creature  comforts  in  super 
abundance  and  of  complete  animal  enjoy 
ment  of  them.  Such  men — there  are  wom 
en  by  the  thousand  of  the  same  species — 
are  to  be  seen  and  scrutinized  in  every  street 
car  that  carries  the  population  northward  in 
the  late  afternoon,  or  home  from  the  theatre 
later.  They  are  in  the  theatres,  in  the  res 
taurants,  and  they  drive  by  at  all  hours  in 
251 


Lucid  Intervals 


cabs.  They  are  sleek,  well  nourished,  and 
wear  fur-coats  on  cold  nights.  Their  faces 
are  often  shrewd,  usually  selfish,  sometimes 
merely  self-satisfied.  They  seem  to  be  in 
the  world,  and  in  New  York  especially,  for 
what  material  gratifications  there  are  in  it 
for  them.  They  do  not  blush  in  the  restau 
rants  at  lunch  when  they  put  down  knife 
and  fork  to  inspect  the  stock  quotations  on 
the  ticker-tape.  They  may  have  souls,  but 
they  don't  look  it.  Doubtless  in  some  in 
stances  they  are  better  than  they  appear  and 
have  some  thoughts  beyond  gain  and  indul 
gence.  I  like  the  politician  better.  He  is 
often  enough  a  grasping  person,  but  he  is 
part  of  humanity  and  in  close  touch  with  the 
other  human  particles  of  his  environment, 
whereas  this  man  of  obvious  self-indulgence 
seems  a  parasite,  ignorant  of  the  catechism 
and  incapable  either  to  glorify  God  or  enjoy 
Him. 

Now  the  College  Boy,  especially  when  he 
comes  to  town,  is  here  for  fun,  and  rarely 
takes  much  thought  except  of  means  of 
having  it.  But  with  him  it  is  different. 
He  is  at  the  irresponsible  age.  He  belongs 
252 


Some   New    York    Types 


to  the  only  leisure  class  we  have  that  is  not 
more  or  less  depressing.  When  he  blos 
soms  out  in  full  strength  and  glory  he  is 
visibly  radiant  two  blocks 
off.  He  is  so  pretty,  so 
clean,  so  polished  as  to 
his  shoes,  so  pink  as  to 
his  shirt-cuffs !  We  smile 
at  him,  or,  if  we  sigh,  we 
sigh  with  extenuating 
eyes.  Yes,  he  is  selfish; 
he  is  irresponsible,  self- 
indulgent,  frivolous.  He 
smokes  cigarettes  in  the 
street,  which  he  shouldn't; 
he  looks  upon  the  wine 
when  it  is  any  good  col 
or,  and  upon  the  maid 
en  who  is  artfully  made 
up  to  look  well  behind 
footlights.  He  likes  to 
eat  at  all  hours  of  the  day  or  night.  He 
marauds  about  with  one  or  two  pals  that 
are  like  unto  him,  demurely  assuming,  in 
so  far  as  he  may,  an  outward  aspect  of  re 
serve  and  innocence,  while  he  meditates  in 
2S3 


THE    COLLEGE    BOY 


Lucid  Intervals 


his  heart  such  dare-devil  feats  as  to  make 
a  call  at  a  young  ladies'  boarding-school. 
He  is  tired  of  nothing  and  seldom  weary, 
and  the  morning  tastes  good  to  him  no  mat 
ter  at  what  untimely  hour  he  went  to  bed. 
For  all  he  is  a  self-seeker  and  overkind  to 
himself,  he  does  not  depress  us  as  some  older 
men  do,  for  youth  is  its  own  excuse  and  pal 
liation.  He  will  grow  up.  He  can't  be 
getting  much  harm — he  looks  too  healthy. 
How  is  he  to  learn  that  happiness  lies  in 
the  direction  of  duty  if  he  does  not  convince 
himself  by  timely  experience  of  the  unsat 
isfying  nature  of  pleasure  ?  Let  us  be  as 
optimistic  about  the  college  boy  as  circum 
stances  warrant.  Nature  endorses  by  her 
practice  the  theory  that  an  interval  of  but 
terfly  is  a  good  thing  between  grubs.  There 
is  a  grub  behind  the  collegian,  and  more 
ahead  of  him.  Let  him  shake  his  pretty 
wings  while  he  may. 

It  is  not  the  solicitations  of  pleasure  that 
have  brought  Herr  Pretzel  out  on  Broadway 
at  five  o'clock  in  his  evening  clothes.  He 
is  a  German  and  a  person  of  talent.  At 
present  Destiny  and  other  influences  con- 
.  254 


Some    New    York    Types 


strain  him  to  fiddle  in  the  orchestra  of  a 
fashionable  restaurant.  He  is  not  at  pres 
ent  a  distinguished  musician,  and  possibly 
his  hair  is  a  trifle  longer  than  his  profes 
sional  standing  warrants.  Still  he  is  a 
musician,  and  he  has  employment;  and, 
since  he  follows  and  lives  by  the  calling  of 
his  choice,  it  is  not  for  us 
to  grieve  on  his  account 
because  his  bow  has  not 
yet  brought  down  any 
very  big  game.  He  is 
duly  nourished  and  walks 
with  an  energy  that  beto 
kens  health.  The  world  in 
which  he  lives  is  a  world 
of  sweet  sounds,  and  one 
in  which  not  only  is  pro 
motion  always  waiting 
to  reward  attainment, 
but  in  which  the  hon 
est  day's  work  finds  its 
abundant  consolations. 
It  is  not  much  of  a  trial  to  him  that  the  skirts 
of  his  top-coat  are  overmuch  abbreviated, 
that  his  hat  bears  marks  of  antiquity,  or 
255 


HERR    PRETZEL 


Lucid  Intervals 


that  his  trousers  are  mere  trousers  and  not 
works  of  art.  On  clothes  and  outward  ap 
pearances  his  thoughts  dwell  little.  If  he 
passes  muster  with  his  leader,  that  is  enough 
for  him.  He  would  gladly  earn  more  money 
if  he  could,  and  some  of  the  things  that 
money  buys  would  fit  as  well  into  his  life  as 
into  yours  or  mine.  But,  after  all,  his  world 
is  not  the  world  of  stocks  and  corner  lots, 
but  of  sounds  and  symphonies,  and  the 
necessary  considerations  of  practical  life 
that  intrude  into  it  are  dismissed  with 
the  least  attention  that  will  satisfy  them. 
Spheres  have  their  harmonies.  Herr  Pret 
zel's  sphere  abounds  in  them,  and  he  hears 
them.  That  is  great  good-luck  and  not  too 
common.  Very  many  persons  whose  spheres 
seem  much  more  enviable  than  his  are  so 
unattuned  to  them  that  they  seem  to  catch 
only  discords.  To  be  suited  to  one's  walk 
of  life  and  gather,  in  fair  measure,  what 
offers,  is  success,  and  success  of  a  sort  that 
Herr  Pretzel  seems  in  a  fair  way  to  achieve. 
The  fine  flower  of  the  streets  and  the  ave 
nues,  which  more  than  any  other  single 
thing  makes  New  York  charming,  is  the 
256 


Some    New    York   Types 

girl  of  society.  If  we  were  taxed  especially 
for  her  maintenance  and  adornment,  it 
would  not  be  hard  to  demonstrate  that  we 
got  our  money's  worth  and  should  pay  our 
dues  gratefully.  But  she  doesn't  tax  us  ; 
at  least  not  directly.  If  we  contribute  to 
her  support  we  don't  know  it,  and  our  re 
spectful  enjoyment  of  her  is  part  of  that 
freedom  of  the  city  in  which  all  good  citi 
zens  share.  What  a  vast  deal  of  pains  is 
taken  with  her ;  how  freely  money  is  spent, 
and  taste  and  thought  lavished,  to  make 
her  presentable  when  she  goes  abroad ! 
There  is  a  lot  of  altruism  about  her.  She 
is  constantly  doing  for  others,  unconscious 
ly  and  without  taking  credit  to  herself. 
She  walks  ten  blocks,  and  out  of  a  hundred 
persons  who  take  note  of  her  there  is  possi 
bly  one  acquaintance  whose  attention  in 
terests  her.  So  far  as  the  others  are  con 
cerned  she  takes  little  thought  whether  her 
appearance  satisfies  them  or  not.  If  she 
takes  pains  with  herself  it  is  not  of  set  pur 
pose  to  adorn;  it  is  the  response  to  instinct. 
She  likes  to  look  as  handsome  as  she  can 
because  she  is  so  constituted.  She  likes 
H  257 


Lucid  Intervals 


handsome  clothes  because  they  are  hand 
some.  She  wears  them  in  the  street,  not 
in  fulfilment  of  an  obligation  to  beautify 
the  city,  but  because,  as  between  clothes, 
her  natural  choice  is  for  good  ones,  and 
even  if  fine  raiment  is  more  troublesome 
to  wear  than  sad  raiment,  it  is  well  worth 
the  additional  trouble.  All  women  are 
not  like  her.  It  is  asserted  that  English 
women  have  very  moderate  concern  about 
their  appearance  in  the  street,  and  German 
ladies  have  been  criticised — I  don't  know 
how  justly — for  the  same  sort  of  indiffer 
ence.  They  dress,  we  are  told,  respectably, 
and  no  better,  and  keep  their  finer  plumage 
for  in-door  display.  It  seems  prodigiously 
sensible  of  them.  But  for  my  part  I  am 
grateful  that  our  birds  of  Paradise  are  of 
another  disposition  and  dispense  their  glo 
ries,  like  the  beneficent  sun,  upon  friend  and 
stranger,  rich  and  poor. 

Their  prodigality  has  one  result  that  is  not 
fortunate.  It  stirs  emulation  in  the  bosoms 
of  some  of  their  sisters  who  are  by  no  means 
qualified  either  by  fortune  or  by  taste  to 
rival  them.  Feathers  that  are  truly  fine 
258 


Some    New    York    Types 

are  admirable  on  fine  birds,  but  feathers  that 
merely  aspire  to  be  brilliant  on  birds  of  like 
aspirations  are  not  admirable  at  all.  The 
fashions  are  made  primarily  for  the  rich. 
Some  of  them  are  good  enough  general-use 
fashions ;  others,  when  the  very  much  less 
rich  adopt  them,  give  tragic  results.  To  wear 
long  skirts  out  -  of  -  doors  in  the  daytime  is 
a  practice  which  is  just  tolerable  for  rich 
women  who  have  carriages  to  transport 
them  and  maids  to  keep  their  clothes  clean. 
For  poorer  women  who  ride  in  street-cars  or 
walk,  it  is  monstrous  foolishness.  Most  of 
them  will  admit  it.  Nevertheless,  when 
fashion  says  wear  long  skirts  in  the  street, 
out  troops  four-fifths  of  womankind,  either 
holding  their  skirts  laboriously  up,  or,  dread 
ful  to  record,  letting  them  drag  behind  on 
the  pavement.  The  most  worthy  young 
women  are  guilty  of  this  astonishing  fool 
ishness.  Typewriters  trail  their  skirts  about 
the  floors  of  offices,  and  think  it  preferable 
to  appear  week  after  week  with  an  inch- 
wide  margin  of  dirt  around  the  hem  of  their 
garment  than  to  flout  fashion  and  wear  what 
suits  their  calling. 

259 


Lucid    Intervals 


She  is  rather  a  pathetic  figure,  the  girl 
who  follows  the  fashions  afar  off.  She  sel 
dom  catches  up  with  it,  and  if,  for  a  moment, 
she  does,  away  from  her 
it  breaks  again  and  leaves 
her  toiling  after.  Never 
theless,  her  predicament 
is  rather  a  difficult  one, 
and  we  ought  not  to 
scold  her  too  sharply  if 
her  stock  of  personal 
gumption  is  too  slight  to 
enable  her  to  see  that  the 
middle  course,  that  shuns 
extremes  and  minimizes 
variation,  is  the  one  that 
leads  at  least  cost  to  the 
best  results. 

As  for  the  shop-girl, 
her  frivolities  are  part  of 
her  and  in  keeping  with 
Like  the  college  boy,  she 
has  youth  to  make  for  her  such  excuses 
as  seem  indispensable.  There  is  no  faded 
gentility  about  her.  Sometimes  she  dis 
mays,  but  she  does  not  sadden.  As  an 
260 


THE    SHOP-GIRL 


her  occupation. 


Some   New    York    Types 

individual  she  may  sometimes  be  pathetic, 
but  as  a  class  she  is  not.  She  has  a  sphere, 
and  it  has  its  abundant  hopes  and  tri 
umphs  and  agitations.  She  has  a  large 
measure  of  liberty  which  is  not  invariably 
unwholesome.  Laws  are  made  for  her  pro 
tection  and  to  promote  her  comfort  and 
welfare.  Her  supervisors  are  themselves 
under  supervision,  and  though  neither  leg 
islation  nor  intelligent  benevolence  can 
procure  for  her  all  the  easements  and  re 
wards  and  protections  that  she  ought  to 
have,  she  is  far  too  much  before  the  pub 
lic  to  suffer  long  from  evils  that  readily  ad 
mit  of  remedy.  Moreover,  she  has  a  fairly 
effectual  idea  of  taking  care  of  herself. 
There  is  safety,  we  are  told,  in  numbers ; 
and  that  is  hers,  for  she  is  one  of  a  mul 
titude.  Oh,  the  stories  that  are  told  of 
her  sauciness,  of  her  disrespect  to  ladies 
who  are  used  to  deference,  of  her  haugh 
ty  indifference  to  the  sufferings  of  waiting 
customers  !  The  talk  that  passes  every 
day  between  women  in  New  York  on 
three  topics  of  clothes,  servants,  and  shop 
girls —  how  many  thick  books  it  would 
261 


Lucid   Intervals 


make  !  They  are  all  important  topics,  for 
the  shop-girl  is  indispensable  as  well  as 
the  other  two.  Long  life  and  good-luck 
to  her,  and  enjoyment  of  all  her  privileges 
— the  seat  the  law  provides  for  behind  the 
counter,  her  summer  half  -  holidays,  her 
week  or  fortnight  out  of  town,  her  friend 
ship  with  some  of  her  steady  customers, 
and  her  opportunities  to  make  effectual, 
though  tacit,  protest  against  the  deport 
ment  of  others. 

The  Woman  Who  Buys — does  any  one 
get  more  out  of  her  New  York  than  she 
does?  She  has  a  house,  she  has  children, 
she  has,  or  had,  a  husband,  and  she  has 
a  fairly  long  purse  duly  connected  with 
sources  of  adequate  replenishment.  Evi 
dently  she  has  need  to  buy.  It  is  labo 
rious,  but  she  does  not  evade  her  duties 
because  they  are  fatiguing.  She  is  not 
afraid  of  work,  provided  it  is  to  her  taste, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  she  likes  to 
buy.  As  the  traditional  Englishman  gets 
up  in  the  morning  and  says,  "  It  is  a  fine 
day;  let  us  go  out  and  kill  something!" 
so  says  she,  though  not  always  aloud, 
262 


Some   New    York    Types 

when  she  draws  back  the  curtain  from  her 
chamber  window,  "  It  is  a  fine  morning ; 
I  have  shopping  to  do."  If  not  a  fine 
morning  she  goes  just  the  same;  for  she 
says,  "  It  threatens  rain,  and  the  shops 
will  not  be  crowded."  Buying  things  is 
her  chief  occupation  and  interest  in  life. 
It  would  surprise  her  mightily  if  you 
told  her  so,  but  it  is  true.  It  is  an  amus 
ing  occupation  if  one  is  good  at  it  and 
has  time  to  devote  to  it.  It  has  its  labors, 
its  disappointments,  its  successes,  and  its 
triumphs.  When  you  like  what  you  have 
bought,  that  is  success.  When  you  get 
what  you  don't  need  at  a  bargain,  that  is 
also  success.  When  you  pick  up  what 
you  like,  and  had  to  have,  at  a  great  bar 
gain,  that  is  triumph.  Our  woman  who 
buys  is  often  an  excellent  and  very  useful 
person  —  provident,  discerning,  and  gener 
ous.  When  her  own  family's  needs  are 
so  well  provided  for  as  not  to  call  for  the 
exercise  of  her  talent,  she  often  buys 
against  the  necessities  of  others  less  en 
dowed  with  means  of  payment  than  her 
self.  She  is  happy  because  she  labors 
263 


Lucid  Intervals 


abundantly  in  an  occupation  that  suits 
her.  She  will  continue  to  be  happy  as 
long  as  her  health  and  her  income  hold 
out.  Long  continuance  to  both,  for  if 
either  fails  her  she  will  find  this  a  sad 
world. 


THE  END 


14  DAY  USE 

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yri  4 

INTERL1BRARY  L< 

>AN 

DEC  5     1969 

ONE  AJONTH  AFTER  RtCI 
ocftiT  AM  ii  i 

n 

OCiT  I    \Jr4  ILL. 

1  1  1  At       ft     f\       J/\/\  1 

JUN  0  3  1994 

U.  C.  BERKELEY 

General  Library 


\C149254 


M177178 


.; 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


